Burn The Bridge Home
by Laryna6
Summary: Why beta test your ultimate creation by putting it in a capsule for decades when you invented time travel and can just go and see how it turns out, then make the necessary adjustments? Unless your rogue destroyer puts a beam saber through your heart first. Or, in which X and Zero carjack Dr. Wily's time machine.
1. It's Technically Commandeering

_The carish thing is from the OVA, but you can imagine a Delorian if you like._

_So, I had four chapters of this written years ago, but then I went to other projects but kept tinkering with it every once in awhile, and then I realized that I should really use Shade Man for a certain scene (the Mega Man Gigamix version of him is great) and I generally had to rip out a lot of what I'd written._

_Since I need practice revising, this is another of those fics that I decided to clean up, finish and post. I hope you find it at least somewhat amusing._

_Takes place in a mix of Mega Man Megamix/Gigamix and the take I had on the 'verse before they came out. _Spoilers for the entire Hitoshi Ariga manga_._

* * *

Although one would never have known it, looking at the military parts of the installation and the pods people used while on call, Maverick Hunter HQ's personnel housing, with its landscaped gardens and large amount of space per hunter, was quite luxurious by modern standards.

Barracks were obviously impractical: separate quarters for all hunters were a must. If people had been jammed together the virus would have spread like wildfire, with mavericks infecting roommates in their sleep.

No: having a secure, homelike refuge with plenty of privacy and personal space to go to was essential, not just a morale boost. And they needed morale boosts, in the face of the average hunters' life expectancy. The world owed a certain amount of luxury to those about to die, and it would have been the height of folly to mistreat those who fought mavericks. That would have been begging for defections.

Also, hunters living like humans encouraged them to understand humans, learn what they were fighting for.

Thus it was that on a summer afternoon (pleasant, thanks to the weather control system), a few off-duty hunters were having a picnic on a grassy knoll when something vaguely resembling an antique automobile appeared out of thin air, interrupting Signas telling Axl stories about the couple years he'd spent as a private investigator before replacing his father, X starting to clean up a bit and Zero doing kata while he listened with half an ear.

Since obviously anything that would appear in the middle of their base without warning (and next to all three immune hunters and the commander!) had to be hostile, Signas ducked behind Axl, who drew his guns and prepared to cover him, X dropped the plates as he whirled and started to charge a shot, and Zero…

When Zero got a look at the man behind the wheel, his jaw dropped. "You!"

X's own eyes widened: he'd learned all he could about his family, so that face was instantly recognizable. That, and the iconic hairstyle. Axl was the only one who didn't have a clue who this guy was.

"At least you recognize me this time," Wily muttered. "But what is this, X is still alive? Another failure." He started to push buttons on the dashboard.

Zero was already diving for the vehicle, and seeing that red blur X used his own dash boots to catch up. Axl hesitated: on the one hand, if Zero and X were attacking whoever this guy was he should too, but on the other he did kind of have to cover Signas or Zero would kill him. Being a trainee sucked like that.

Signas was observing every detail he could for later analysis, since he'd also recognized that infamous hairstyle, so he was the one who noticed the black reploid (or was it?) in the backseat, who had seemed almost bored when the vehicle appeared. Unlike the driver, he had noticed Zero and X's approach, but didn't bother to alert him as Zero pounced on the hood, X joined him… and the vehicle disappeared. The vehicle piloted by _Dr. Wily_ disappeared.

With two of the three living immune hunters, and Axl was young, untested, and might break down at any moment for all they knew.

There was really only one response to something like that. Unfortunately, it consisted of words that couldn't be printed in official reports.

* * *

The value of the observational data aside, the passenger sitting in the backseat thought, if the android master unit did anything more than it already had (which was pick Wily up, shake him and curse him, almost snarling in fury), he would have to blow it up, and that would be a tragic waste of life. He still hadn't forgotten watching Copy-Rock die.

"Zero, stop!" X grabbed Zero's arm.

Zero turned to glare at him, not putting Wily down.

Since X knew that under the circumstances Zero would ignore any argument based on 'hurting people is wrong,' he pointed in front of them. "Look at where we are!"

Even in the grip of rage, Zero was too intelligent a fighter to kill Wily when they were in the middle of some kind of warping void and he was probably the only one who could put them back, so he made an irritated noise under his breath and dropped Wily back into his seat.

The observer raised an eyebrow, systems registering that the improved facial articulation was still worth the investment. Apparently Dr. Wily's killer android cursed like a Lightbot.

That was when X got a chance to notice him, other than as 'potential threat #2.' He seemed puzzled. "You are?"

Zero interrupted him. "Where are we?"

"The void between times, obviously. Why put my ultimate creation in a capsule running boring tests of your systems for decades when I can simply travel through time to see how you turn out and make the necessary adjustments?" While proper beta testing was useful, Dr. Light's method was for sissies. Waiting until the world was ready? Dr. Wily's creation would have no need to fear the world.

"You… all of this is your fault!" And now he was going to call a do-over? Make it so that all of Zero's battles on behalf of the Hunters had never happened? Try to ensure that this time Zero really _would _kill them all, kill X?

The world needed X back, they had to get back to their own time, but X could probably figure out how the thing worked, there were all sorts of dials and displays.

Before X could stop him, Zero's saber flashed, decapitating Dr. Wily.

He'd expected a spray of blood, but instead there was, "A _spring?" _His head was on a _spring?_

X's eyes widened. "A robot double?" He'd read about those in the legends. He could yell at Zero later.

"Of course," the observer said, leaning back in his seat. He would not have allowed Dr. Wily to come along on a mission this hazardous in the flesh. Not that Dr. Wily had ever planned on doing so, since he'd expected to arrive in a world covered in virus. That was why he had been sent: even Dr. Wily wouldn't have been able to remote-control the body from an entirely different era without the help of a robot master refining the signals.

"This is a time machine, isn't it?" X asked, after seeing the display. "How do we get home?"

They weren't going home, Zero decided. Not yet.

The other passenger just watched, both eyes open.

"Answer the question, please." Normally, X would have wanted to try negotiation, but Zero decapitating the robot's master had ruined any chance of that (although good cop bad cop was still an option).

He wasn't impressed when X pointed his buster at him, fully charged or not. "Please be careful not to damage the time machine."

"How much longer is this going to take?" Zero asked.

"Not much longer." With a time machine, the thing to say would normally be 'we've got all the time in the world' especially since none of them had aging to worry about. He wondered if androids were capable of boredom. Normally only young, confined robot masters were, since they lacked mental stimulation and data to contemplate, but both of these two should have had plenty of life experience to meditate on.

"Who are you?" X wondered. "You're not human, but you're not a robot master." Another android?

What? "Incorrect," he told the android, closing the eye that transmitted the video it took to Dr. Wily. "Whatever gave you that idea? I am a robot master. My name is Shadow Man."

"I'm sorry, it's just that I've never heard of a robot master that looked so realistic." Well, not counting Rock and Roll, but he'd thought even they would be, well, several design generations behind him. "You are a Wilybot, aren't you? But you're more accurate than I am." Little movements, all sorts of things that were very hard to copy. Most reploids weren't even as close to human as X, and a robot master surpassed him?

"Yes, I am a Wilybot. One designed for infiltration." Mining facilities on other planets, the Pentagon, blackmail material acquisition… " It looked like X's face was designed for emotional display instead of hyperrealism: while he certainly didn't fall in the uncanny valley, he was clearly intended to look cute instead of unmemorable.

While Dr. Wily crowed that Omega would be his greatest creation, his facial structure was less accurate than X's: that might have given the android the idea that Wily wasn't as good at it as Dr. Light? Frankly,in Omega's case Dr. Wily hadn't cared about realism, given the purpose of the project. "Dr. Wily's work has always been superior to Dr. Light's," Shadow Man informed him, because it would be a bad idea for the android to imply that Wilybot meant inferior work in front of a camera that wasn't shut off, and if he said something like that in front of Forte!

Zero opened his mouth to object, but then they arrived.

"Skull Fortress," X breathed, looking around with no small amount of trepidation. He'd faced mavericks many times, but this was walking into a legend.

"Yes." The old Skull Fortress, not Wily City, but he had no reason to give the android information. Getting out of the car, he called, "Jiraiya!" A small orange frog-bot hopped up from the foot of the passenger's seat, where it had been keeping a weapon trained on Zero.

Shadow Man appreciated the thought, really, but why had Dr. Wily originally constructed his support unit as a giant orange mech when he was designed as an infiltration unit? It had been anything but inconspicuous. He had needed to leave Jiraya behind all of the time until it had occurred to him that he _was _a robot master, and should do his duty to his support unit as well as his creator. Upgraded with cloaking capability, it didn't matter what color Jiraiya was, and a smaller body, a teleportation unit, weapon upgrades and storage space for weapon energy transportation (or other things…) had made him a valuable asset, like Megaman's Eddie.

They both teleported out.

X looked around the room, a strange, uncomprehending hope filling him. It couldn't be, time travel was the stuff of fantasy, and yet he _wanted _it to be real. "We should get back, Zero… Zero?" but Zero was gone as well. "Zero?"

He was alone in the middle of Dr. Wily's base? Why would Zero leave him behind.

He'd gone to kill his father and his past self, hadn't he. Zero would know that X would have to stop him. The person who created the virus was one thing: even if he hadn't unleashed the Maverick Virus yet, Dr. Wily was still responsible for the deaths of a great many others, but X wouldn't let his partner kill himself.

When he was a rookie, X would have pursued Zero, but for all he knew, he might arrive too late.

He'd been left alone in Skull Fortress. With a _time machine. _He wasn't going to fool around with that function if he didn't need to, but leaving a resource as valuable as this behind, in enemy hands? X slung himself back into the car. If he was lucky, it would have teleport capability separate from the time travel function, and X had a set of coordinates that would work in this era and the codes to get through the shield.

* * *

_Edit: Since the fic was originally going to have a certain plot, and then my idea of how I was going to handle a few different things kept changing, I saved different versions of this chapter. After uploading, I went back to check something and found I'd uploaded the wrong draft. Fixed._


	2. Meeting Two Very Different Families

_References to the _Mega Man Gigamix _manga, which I can't recommend highly enough, but trying to avoid outright spoilers. Changing this fic to fit with Gigamix meant I had to take out one character, and replace the random robot master I picked for this chapter originally with a much better one._

* * *

Zero was having a more traditional experience than X. Robots, spikes… Sigma had been copying from Wily's playbook all along, hadn't he? Zero had seen this, all of this so many times before. It was just a matter of reaching the end, the center, of finding the secret lab, of killing.

Of saving everyone. Sigma, Iris, Colonel: so many dead because of the virus. X, Axl, Alia: so many people grieving lost loved ones.

He knew that it might not be that simple. It probably wouldn't be, not with his luck, and this was _time travel _they were talking about.

Except it had to be possible to stop it. Had to be. He didn't want to cause so much destruction: if there was any hope of preventing it, any hope of ending it, then he had to take that chance.

He couldn't just give up.

* * *

Getting out of the car, X could feel the teleport shield, sense the security system here, as he stood at the edge of the property, not quite daring to step forward, to open the gate. Beyond it, there were rosebushes and a large lawn that was clearly meant for play, not show. The house itself was clearly high-tech, built in a sort of futuristic style, but that just made it even more perfect, somehow. Symbols that screamed traditional nuclear family embracing the product of technology. Even the shield, the defenses, spoke of love, not of death, because what they protected was infinitely precious.

He'd seen images, even video of this place, of course. It wasn't the same as standing here, smelling these flowers, feeling these shields query his systems and _recognize _him. He hadn't even been turned on yet, he wouldn't be for decades (as far as they'd known), and he was still _known_.

Flowers and thorns, a Frisbee on the lawn and hidden weapons and other devices under it. He knew that his unborn body was likely somewhere in there, deep underground, protected by layers and layers of careful defenses that had survived an apocalypse.

He'd never seen this place in real life. He should feel like a stranger here, he should be depressed by the knowledge that this happy home would be reduced to scorched earth.

_Welcome home_ the system that pinged him had said warmly, in place of a more normal, mechanical acknowledgement of his identity, and he _was. _He could walk in now, and they would be surprised but glad to see him, it would be better than any dream because it would be _real._

_Don't be shy, come on in,_ he was sent. _It's not a good idea for you to just stand there in armor,_ the female voice added, and X realized this wasn't just a recording. Robot Masters had been system managers, able to merge with and direct them, receive input and reprogram over wireless signals. _No one's seen you yet – but… _

"Roll?"

"_Who else_?" As though she'd let someone else protect her family's home, an amused undercurrent conveyed.

"Oh." So that was why she wasn't surprised. "I'm… glad," he said, and swallowed.

Almost seventy-five years now, since he was released from the capsule. Such a long time, all of it spent adapting to the virus. Adapting to constant war. On top of how he'd evolved in the capsule.

He was still recognizable as a Lightbot? Still recognizable as X, or at least something pretending to be him? Right, free-willed androids were illegal, even a fake standing out in the street could give away X's existence, and then?

He'd expected robot masters to be more like reploids than this. Reploids didn't network like this, they didn't, they couldn't just merge with systems. It was a consequence of their theoretical immunity from reprogramming. The walls that should have kept things like the virus out sealed them into their own minds.

He would never have been able to get as good a reading on this system if Roll hadn't been converting the data into a form he could handle, he realized. Translating for him.

It wasn't a system that protected this place. It was _Roll_. It was her, or the remnants of her, as well as Dr. Light, that had protected him all those years. Even in death.

The gate unlatched easily – for him – and he stepped through, feeling the system's alert level, feeling her worry, decrease. "I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

"_It's not your fault: we can talk once you're inside. I'd come greet you, but I'm making some refreshments." _Since X could eat. Provided he was X: if not, he might have some trouble.

"Are Mega Man and Dr. Light here_?" _

"_Call him Rock alright? Mega Man's just for during the wars."_ And was he another war, brought to their doorstep? X had read about Dr. Light being kidnapped: would he really be allowed to meet them?_ "They're here, they just don't know you're here yet." _She could have sent the information to Rock, but she didn't want to ruin the surprise.

It was a red dog robot that spotted him next, looking surprised but not alarmed before finally coming up and sniffing him. He crouched to hold out his hand, palm down, the way he would with a real... or rather biological dog. "You're Rush… right?" A support unit, something else robot masters had used that didn't work for androids. On the one hand, it might have been nice to have the company, but mechaniloids could be infected and a non-sapient unit, even one built back in 20XX, might not be immune. "I'm X. It's nice to meet you."

He'd heard phrases like 'so happy I could cry,' and 'butterflies in my stomach,' but they didn't really apply. He might have been overjoyed, if this weren't a calming feeling instead of an excited one. He was _home_.

He was still worried about Zero.

Zero had his own family, and his own issues. If X had tried to drag him to Dr. Light's he'd have just broken out, gone searching for his own origins, to destroy them. X knew he had to wait for Zero to contact him.

The door opened and X heard, "You don't have to stand out there on the porch, mister…" Rock tilted his head at X, clearly assessing him. Was this a Wilybot impersonating X? Already? Well, Forte had stolen X's plans along with Rush's upgrades. And the rest of their database.

"I am X," he assured the legendary hero. "Dr. Wily came to my era in a time machine. Zero and I ended up along for the ride." The teleport system in this era was both much larger and much better guarded. In his era, much of it consisted of leftover orbiting transmitters from this era that had been hacked long ago (the original codes had been lost), and so anyone could access them.

Despite Rock's childlike looks, he was too experienced to take X's word for it, but the tension eased after a few seconds. He'd probably asked Roll if she knew where their 'X' was. "Hi, I'm Rock." That smile was adorable. "Come on in. Father's going to be really glad to meet you."

Even without the Cataclysm, Dr. Light probably wouldn't have been there when X woke up. That was why he'd made the armor capsules.

* * *

To think he'd bought into the general belief that robots were _primitive, _since he'd never had any reason to need to think about it. Dr. Wily had built _him_, so of course his technology was leaps and bounds above the best the hunters and mavericks had access to. There was even a formless shapeshifting thing here that might be related to Axl. It wasn't like they were sure of where he or Lumine had come from, damn secret projects. No: the designs might be simple, but they were _effective_. The best of 21XX's machines were mechaniloids, and mechaniloid technology always had a faintly animalistic quality to it. They, too, were based on X's nanites and could be infected by the virus. They were alive without being smart. They might do the tasks they were designed for, but somewhere in there were nanites and code that said they were an independent organism and so they'd try to think. Primitively. Then they got outsmarted, because he was a sentient veteran and they weren't.

These weren't mechaniloids he was facing. These were robots. They were following patterns designed by an_ intelligent_ mind with mechanical precision. He couldn't distract them, and in fact the fact they weren't too responsive to what he did meant on the one hand that once he had a strategy for each type it was a matter of repeating it but on the other that it was harder to draw them out of position.

Despite the bat themed-designs and quirky architecture, there was an air of ruthless efficiency about this place, these things. That he was dealing with machines that didn't have morale, that didn't have anger or fear, that just had jobs. And did them. Following their patterns and programming like waves crashing against a shore, and fencing with the sea was proverbially futile.

Oh, he'd killed them all. It felt like blowing the dust off old skills, like he knew their movement patterns. He knew almost to the second when a robot master had taken control of all of them and started coordinating their movements, adjusting positions to deal with a melee weapon-user. The change hadn't been that dramatic, but he'd _known_. There hadn't been a wireless signal, but this place was custom-built to be a Skull Fortress, the lair of Wily and his robot masters. He knew there were fiber-optic cables buried in the walls, and he hadn't a prayer of hacking into them to intercept the orders the master sent his robots. Of keeping the master from watching his every move.

He recognized so much of this place, from buried memories, and it would have terrified him if he hadn't funneled all of that into his desperation. "Where _am _I?" he said to himself, cutting down another sniper joe model. How hard could it be to find an android in a capsule? Dr. Cain hadn't even been looking for one when he'd found X!

He jumped down into a larger room and exclaimed, "Finally!" when a robot master teleported in. That hopefully meant he was getting somewhere.

Instead of attacking, the hook-nosed, bat-winged robot master perched on a column asked, "Who are you and why are you here, killing my robots? There isn't a war on right now."

"You mean no one comes after you guys in between the wars? Seriously, no one? I could see X's brother living and letting live, but…" Zero shook his head. They didn't just fight mavericks during the wars: no, they tried to keep them from having enough resources to rebuild Sigma and fight wars in the first place.

A brow arched. "Other than Mega Man, warbots are illegal, and no one but our father is capable of programming a non-sentient robot to fight robot masters." Sending a normal non-sentient robot into a robot master's range was just begging for it to be hacked and controlled and/or blown up. The world's militaries had just completed the transition to drones, tactical nets and high-tech tank operating systems when all that became worse than useless. "There hasn't been a serious attempt to build one since the Third Rebellion." When Dr. Wily had been working with Dr. Light, and taken Gamma for himself. Like Sigma, Zero realized. "There were the tournament warbots, but even the WRO learned their lesson after _that_ debacle. The only people capable of building something like you would be Wily or Light, unless..." The robot master looked him up and down, before tut-tutting. "Oh, don't tell me Dr. Wily wants to pretend to have someone overthrow him again," the robot master said with false dismay. "After King?"

"I'm not going to pretend to overthrow him." Zero just wanted to kill him, that was all.

"Well, Dr. Light wouldn't use evil energy in construction. You're either a Wilybot or another stardroid, and we have sensor net coverage out past the Oort cloud by now." The robot master seemed a little proud of that. "Of course, he could have dug up something best left buried. _Again_. Too many of your components are terrestrial for you to be a stardroid, at least. Do whatever orders our father's given you _really _require that you kill my robots before taking on Mega Man?" Shade Man sighed dramatically. "I suppose he's still angry that I put him to sleep that time."

"I'm not here to fight Mega Man, I'm here to destroy my past self."

A pause. "…You're here to what now?" Really? That was new.

It did sound ridiculous, and yet the robot master wasn't exactly scoffing. Right, he was one of Wily's, he might know about the time travel technology. "Where is Dr. Wily's lab?"

"You came from it."

Zero drew his saber, although he refrained from activating it. For now. "I searched that area."

"Then I'm sorry, but your past self is in another fortress. We do have several, you know. This one has been mine since I came up with the plan to refurbish the satellites. Our father gave it to me to rebuild afterwards... as punishment for putting him to sleep, true." A large, fanged grin: the robot master considered it an excellent gift.

So... not too loyal to Wily, then? "Where do I find the others?"

A deliberately graceful shrug of a wing. "Ask Forte, when he challenges you himself, or Dr. Light."

"Dr. Light knows where they are?"

"No, but he should be able to put something together that senses the power of the stardroids." He certainly ought to be able to do that much, that was how Zero interpreted the robot master's opinion of Dr. Light.

Wait a minute. "You're being surprisingly helpful."

"You mean I'm being surprisingly _un_helpful." To Dr. Wily. "I am a Wilybot, after all. Even though I'm very grateful for everything our father has done for us, you're too much like the stardroids. The sooner you get out of my fortress and blown up, the better."

"Oh? What makes you think I'll get blown up?" He'd beaten them all in the past, hadn't he? That was the most likely scenerio.

"Well, for one thing, the fact that you haven't noticed that the tiles you're standing on are made of high explosives," the robot master said, and smiled.

…Damn. "I thought you said you weren't a warbot," Zero said wryly, after dashing to the opposite corner. He would have felt anything sneaking up on him… but he still knew about booby traps, after dealing with mavericks with prepared positions. The explosives must be a formula that wasn't around anymore in 21XX. Either that or the robot master was lying.

"I'm not. Warbots fight. Robot masters solve problems. Any logical being has a distaste for violence: it's wasteful and pointless. However, the threat of violence can sometimes prevent actual violence. The human phrase is peace through superior firepower. Those who can't fight back are used until they're finally murdered." A hint of bitterness there: the robot master was speaking from experience? Then why did it seem as though he was fond of Dr. Wily? Programmed that way? "Speaking of problems, the sooner you leave the sooner you become someone else's." Unless Zero wanted to be solved out of existence.

Hmm. He supposed he'd believe that. "Where's the exit?"

The robot master bowed with a flourish towards the wall to Zero's right, and the gate opened.

"You have got to be kidding me." The entire time he'd been working his way out of the fortress instead of deeper inside?

Served him right for thinking that this would be just like fighting Sigma. This wasn't his time.

And, if he was lucky, very soon now 21XX wouldn't be his time, either.

He stepped outside, onto the burnt ground, assuming that Wily was responsible for the ecological damage. (Actually, they'd just picked a godforsaken place that no one went for this base. It had been deforested for farmland and then abandoned when the topsoil was lost decades ago.) Hoping X could hear him, he triggered his comm. Good, there was a lot of signal traffic but none of the jamming common in his time, in order to hamper the mavericks and try to prevent virus transmission (even if people were seventy percent or so sure it only infected via nanites, you didn't take chances with the virus). "X?"

It took awhile for there to be a response. "Zero? Where are you?"

"Outside the fortress. Aside from that, I have no idea."

It was a minute before X responded. "I can give you teleport network access codes, my current location, and the codes needed to teleport directly to it."

"Where are you?"

"You'll see when you get here," X said, happily enough Zero knew.

"You're with your family." No. "I shouldn't. They're your family," he said, hair brushing against his back as he shook his head.

"Zero… the capsules made armor for you as well. They wouldn't have done that if you weren't practically family. Please, come? They want to meet my friend."

"X, I…" Their families were enemies, they'd been fighting a war and… "I _can't." _

X sighed. "I'll give you the codes, but you won't be able to teleport to any other locations unless you come here first." He'd need other codes and coordinates.

Dammit.

"Please, Zero. You can't just wander around in armor. They don't have reploids in this era. They don't have sentient robots without the Three Laws except Wilybots."

"I'll get shot at by humans, you mean." That would make things difficult. "I'll just have to… son of a...!" After he'd felt air suddenly rush behind him, he turned to find the fortress gone. The popping noise must have been the collapse of the vacuum left when the fortress teleported out? "The entire thing just vanished!" Wasn't there an upper mass limit on teleportation? He reached out to where a wall had been. Nope, gone. "Give me the codes, I'll head over." That just proved that familiar as it felt, this wasn't his world. He didn't know how it worked.

Maybe, if he pulled this off, then he wouldn't have killed X's family. He'd have a right to be where he was about to go.

The fact that X was there with people so important to the course of history confirmed it. He wasn't going to try to stop Zero from changing history, not when X was hopefully changing history just by coming here.

If history remained as it was, billions of people were going to die. As a hunter in X's case, as the one responsible in Zero's, it was quite literally their job to prevent those deaths. Signas, Alia, the others they were leaving behind to never be born? They were also hunters. There was no need to have the conversation. Not when that would just make it worse for X, who had always hated sacrifices.

* * *

_The original draft of this chapter was written before Gigamix came out, and then of course I had to replace the RM I originally used with Shade Man. _

_Since the MM7 robot masters were not built by Wily in the game backstory, I like the idea that Shade Man is a Wilybot by adoption, which is why he actually respects Wily in a way his own kids don't. _

_Shade Man's backstory... Think about working customer service. Now add the Second Law into that, and people wanting to mess around with the robot for entertainment. Meaning he was constantly being threatened with death, given how the Three Laws work. That explains why he's so clever: if he wasn't, he wouldn't have survived long enough for Wily to get him out of there. His ability to analyze situations and later come up with plans to manage them is compared to Blues, because _he had to _get that good if he wanted to live. That's why he's pulling the 'don't look at me, I just work here/I'm not really on Dr. Wily's side' act with Zero._

_Would Shade Man throw his life away attacking Zero to try to save Dr. Wily? Yes, but only if he couldn't come up with any strategies that might actually work, like 'stay out of range and call in an air strike.' Or use booby traps he wouldn't activate if it was just Rock: Shade Man is aware that Rock isn't actually going to kill the robot masters he fights, while we all know that Zero is an actual murder machine. However, although Zero has stardroid readings and went around killing Shade Man's robots even before they started being hostile in self-defense, he's not actively sadistic the way the stardroids were, that's very obvious after talking to him, so Shade's not going to kill a robot just on suspicion that he might be dangerous._

_That's what humans do. _


	3. The Self-Declared Ultimate Robot

_I like the idea of X existing to bridge the gap between robot masters and humans, or that being part of Dr. Light's hope, instead of just supplanting them. Either of them._

_Terry Pratchett's _Night Watch_ is something people need to read, in fact all the City Watch books and Discworld in general (don't start with the Rincewind subseries, they're my least favorite for a reason), but Commander Vimes finds himself back in time in the Discworld version of _Les Miserables. _He knows how it turned out because he was there before, as a young man, but he can't _not _try to save these people, even if it means that he never gets home because he caused home to not exist. _

* * *

While Rock and Dr. Light checked him over, even though they were having almost as much trouble analyzing him as Dr. Cain had, Roll ordered human clothes for him and had them teleported in. X was more than realistic enough to pass for human with them on. He'd already accepted an offer from her to go shopping with him later, for things for him to take back with him. Presents for their little brother. There was a cold glass of lemonade in his hands, and he'd managed to keep them from asking too many questions about his life by keeping them busy answering his about theirs.

Dr. Light was almost twice as old as Dr. Cain had been when he died, but he was still healthier than Dr. Cain was when X met him. Who knew, he might have lived long enough to see X born, it wasn't impossible. He wasn't in any danger now, he was healthy and fit for his age even by 20XX standards.

Except that would change.

Dr. Cain, Alia, Signas… to change history, if he even could, would mean that they were never born. Did he have a right to do that?

Did he have a right to stand by and let billions be killed?

It had been a very long time since anyone had hugged him. Reploids normally weren't touchy-feely since it was a learned behavior for them, and so few had a chance to learn it. Ironic that robot masters, who many claimed hadn't had 'real' emotions, were. Or at least these were, for family. Rock was leaning against X's side, pointing things out in a photo album spread across their laps as Roll made up a room for X, specially, and Dr. Light pulled together not just X's design files but how to make a lot of the equipment he'd used to construct X, which would save so many lives if X did go back.

He hadn't been able to bring himself to mention the virus yet. He was afraid that just mentioning the armors, and how grateful he was, had already revealed too much. Dr. Light had clearly hoped they wouldn't be needed, and Rock knew very well what things like that meant. Yet Rock was still this brave, cheerful child, and X wouldn't let anything ruin that.

He _wanted to stay here_.

Except what if he couldn't protect them? What if he died uselessly, killed by what had killed them and then there was no one to protect Signas, Alia, Axl and his world? How arrogant it was to think that he could save them when they had been heroes themselves.

Except he almost certainly knew the enemy better than they did.

Speak of the devil.

Zero teleporting in broke him out of those thoughts, thankfully, and Roll entered the room not much later. She looked Zero up and down, running calculations in her head. "Hold on, I'll find you something to wear."

"I'm not a female model," Zero warned her, surprised that someone was certain they could guess his measurements enough to find clothes that fit from just looking at his armor.

"X told us a lot about you," Rock assured him. "Roll's good at picking out clothing."

"I agree." She was better at it than X was, even though she was only five years old to his seventy-five. Most of his human clothing was gifts.

"Really, you don't have to bother." Now Zero was looking uncomfortable, in the way he had around Iris. The way he did when he was sure that he didn't deserve something but still touched by it.

X gestured to the couch: there was a space next to Rock. "Did you find what you were looking for?" Had Zero completed the mission X knew he must have given himself, killed himself and his own father?

"No, but I have to keep looking."

"You're looking for something?" Rock asked.

"My… It's not important." He didn't want to tell these people that he was their enemy. Not when they'd been attacked so many times. He didn't want those eyes to look at him suspiciously.

What was Rock made of, weapons-grade cuteonium? That was something Axl might have said. He paid attention to what effects different appearances had on people. Rock's was calculated to be, well, cute. It was affecting Zero, and Zero considered himself mainly immune… Ok, no, he wasn't immune to cute at all. Iris had been cute. Had Rock been designed to be hard to fight? Like X, really.

Zero actually missed his other idiot student for a second, but Axl had been left behind and that was that. If this worked, he'd never lose Red Alert.

X only looked a few years older than Rock, wearing those clothes, with that happiness on his face. You really could tell that they were family.

Neither of them were buying his 'it's not important' line, for one thing, although Rock trusted X enough not to pry.

Well...

He needed their help. If they knew what he was, of course they would want to destroy him. Then X could stay here, and everyone would be safe. "Actually, I'm trying to find myself," Zero admitted. "I existed in this era. I was made by Dr. Wily to kill X. He uploaded a virus into me that infected other reploids. I'm the reason X has had to fight, and I may be the reason he was never able to meet any of you. If I can be destroyed before I'm activated, then none of that will happen." He lowered his head, not wanting to face their accusing eyes.

"Zero, death isn't the answer." X reached past Rock to cover Zero's hand with his own. "It's possible that if your younger self could be fixed, or if the virus was never installed…" Maybe the two of them would even remain after changing history. The fact X could be here, with his family indicated either that was the case or this was a stable time loop. He hated the thought of that, the idea that fate couldn't be changed. That there was no alternative to Zero's death. He'd fought that dire possibility for decades, reality or not. He didn't care.

"I'd still remain, then. I think I only infected Sigma, but I can't be sure. You're immune, but what if I infect another reploid?"

"There won't be any reploids, if they're similar to androids. Not for a very long time." Dr. Light's voice sounded tired, then. "The world isn't ready for truly free-willed robots. Not when Dr. Cossack and I have to resort to subterfuge to avoid having our creations killed once they pass a certain age. My youngest eight have special dispensation, but most are not so lucky. Dr. Wily is a genius, but I'm sure that a counter to this virus can be found, or reploids can be built without those flaws. You'll have decades to work with, I'm afraid."

The prayed-for distraction turned out to be an explosion. Outside the house, but close.

"Forte." Rock sighed, the way someone did when faced with a habitual annoyance. The way X did when he knew that he had to explain to a new hunter that was being difficult and needed to be knocked down a peg so they would start listening when people tried to train them before they got people killed that yes, X did know what the installed tactical databanks said, but the newbuilt was still doing it wrong. And they were going to be _difficult _about it.

Which generally resulted in a fight _because _X was so nice, actually. Zero would get in their face and shout at them like a drill sergeant until they felt about two inches tall and lost all vocabulary but yessir, X would try to offer advice, and use I statements and so on because he didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Generally, if that was going to work X wouldn't have sighed in that 'I give up,' way. So X would end up having to prove to yet another young punk that despite the slanderous things people said about him, he'd still killed Sigma more times then they'd seen Sundays. And he'd be _nice _about it too, offering advice and saying that it wasn't their fault that they were new, inexperienced, and absolutely no match for him, obviously going easy on them until he'd finished massacring their ego.

X never had to do that more than once per intake round.

Still, just about every intake round, especially if some of the new Hunters had been promoted directly to unit commander and thought that meant they were special and were going to change things around here X would sigh, and look at Zero in that way that asked, "Do you want to handle this or should I?" Unless Zero wasn't there, in which case he'd just head over there and handle it.

That was why Rock wasn't giving Roll that same look right now, actually.

"I'll handle this," Zero told him, standing up. "He's here for me anyway."

"He does this about once a month, actually." Rock looked embarrassed, and X could tell that it was on Forte's behalf.

"You just let him bomb your house?" Zero stared as they heard Forte's loud demand for them to come out.

"…It's better than the alternative."

Zero unsheathed his beam saber. "I'll take care of him."

"Don't kill him!" Rock said, worried. "The buster we're building for X… it's more powerful than the ones we use, except for Blues, because we're worried about him. Mine isn't that powerful because I want to make sure they can be repaired afterwards. Forte… He's a warbot, but he's not… It's not his fault!"

The Commanders of the Shinobi Unit and the Seventeenth both had to blink at him. Dr. Wily's most powerful and vicious minion, and Rock _didn't _want him dead? Was deliberately using a less powerful weapon because he didn't want to kill his enemies? Didn't _have _to kill his enemies?

This world… it was such a different place.

Floating above a crater on black wings that reminded Zero of one of the armors that had been designed for him (had Alia been thinking of the unit they all knew was his older brother when she and Douglass sketched it out?) Forte looked disgusted when Zero came out the door and took up a defensive posture, beam saber in front of him. "Not you, girlybot, I'm here for the blueberry."

"Oh? I thought I was the one you wanted to fight. The doctor's last and greatest creation."

"Yeah, well, _I _was going to prove to him that you were a worthless bucket of bolts by hauling your scraps home in a bucket, but _you _already did. First you can't kill that idiot Lightbot who thinks he's sneaking up on me…" Seriously, he thought that would work? "…and then you nearly get your ass scrapped by _Shade Man_. He wasn't even built by Dr. Wily, he's one of the pieces of scrap he let move in and waste his time upgrading them when he should have been working on me! The old man took one look at that and said there was clearly so much wrong with you that he didn't even want me to haul you in to find out what was wrong, he'd already seen more than enough to get started on version 1.12. Seriously, Girly Man. You suck. He must have been _really _senile when he finalized your design. I've seen garage doors that are higher tech!"

Oh? X had been very quiet, even without the ninja armor, and he _knew_ Forte had never had a line of sight on him.

Wait. Roll had known he was there without seeing him. Not with her physical eyes, anyway. Forte couldn't have access to her network, but there were still radar, heat vision, all sorts of options.

"Big words coming from a has-been."

A reploid of Forte's size, with the capabilities he'd already demonstrated, wouldn't have a lot of space left over for fancy systems. Balance, thought, physical strength, temperature regulation, merging…

Merging. He'd thought Gospel was nothing more than a ride armor, but if Forte could link directly into Gospel's systems, in a way no reploid could do with a mechanaloid? That would effectively double the space available for specialty systems.

"Like I care what you think, won't-be," Forte growled, red eyes starting to glow like embers.

Not to mention that legend said that Forte had a unique power source, meaning it likely took up less space than a reploid's subtanks, which were bulky and primitive compared to even X's energy generation and storage. He also wouldn't have nanites. Tiny as they were, accommodation still had to be made for them. X revised the amount of free space in Forte's body upward, the space Dr. Wily could have filled with nasty surprises.

If they were working on X and Zero right now, then Forte was only one design generation behind them, and one of the two best equipped of that generation, built by a master. X had been thinking of the difference between Zero and Forte in terms of the difference between X and a well-made reploid. Like, oh, Dr. Cain's Colonel. A skilled warrior made by a skilled technician, certainly, but inferior technology.

He should have been thinking of it in terms of the difference between two reploids built by the same creator. Yes, they might have learned more between the projects, but it would still be a fairly even fight.

"Aren't you worried about what he'll build now? After all, I'm already better than you. He has to be stopped and I'm going to stop him." Zero stalked forward, noting that Forte was within a double jump of the ground. Honorable of him, to give the non-flier a fighting chance. Also, stupid. Zero had assumed his brothers hadn't had that character flaw.

X knew that Zero had to be making the same calculations.

Robot masters had specialties. Weapons. X had been built as a generalist model with infinite potential and a copy of Mega Man's signature weapon to bring it out. Unlike X, Zero had been built with a specific weapon in mind.

The virus. Which he couldn't control, not now.

"Better than me?" Forte's snarl showed that he, like Zero, had canines that were just a little too close to fangs for comfort, although his were more pronounced, even more fanglike. That was something to keep in mind, since Zero doubted Forte's teeth were just for show either, not when Zero had bitten through fingers, limbs and necks during the rampage. Zero would have to watch the hand that wasn't formed into a buster: if it had claws then Forte had a close-range weapon, unlike X.

Although he had the advantage of decades of experience, Zero was effectively restricted to subweapons and Forte was in perfect working order. Not to mention the advantages flight-capable enemies had in outdoor areas. Forte could stay out of range and bomb Zero, if it came to that.

"Better than me?!" Purple began to appear around Forte as he charged up, a color Zero associated with the virus but no, this was something else. And probably trouble.

With X's Falcon armor or Zero's Absolute, the odds would be closer to even. Unless there was something else he was overlooking. Aside from the fact that Forte having a superior power source obviously meant that he could keep repairing himself for longer and would win any war of attrition.

Wait.

That was it.

* * *

"I'll show you who the strongest one is!"

"_Oh no_." X could hear the wince in Roll's voice. "_Zero just triggered Forte's programming." _

"What do you mean?" X asked quietly.

"_His absolute priority is to be the strongest, to defeat everyone until everyone acknowledges that he's the strongest. Wilybots don't have the laws, but… Forte's not a bad person, but he's a warbot, he doesn't see anything wrong with destruction and once this gets triggered, he can't make a distinction between people and things. That's why it's better to fight him here." _

"Instead of at Dr. Wily's fortress? Why?"

"_No. Instead of in a city. Or an amusement park. You see, if Mega Man isn't fighting at his best, then a victory won't prove that Forte is the strongest. So he has to not just make Rock fight his hardest, but get rid of anything that is making Rock hold back. Like people that might get caught in the crossfire. Rock doesn't like fighting, but if he fights him here then he fights his hardest, because it's to protect us and he doesn't have to worry about hurting innocent people."_

"But in a city…" He'd have to worry about buster fire hitting people or buildings that people had taken shelter in.

Like the building here.

He knew, theoretically, that there were shields. They wouldn't let Dr. Light be in danger. But this was his family's home. He'd seen what was left in the rubble. He'd grown up knowing that they'd all been killed.

So he rolled out from cover and fired a charged shot at Forte's wing. For a reploid, that would hurt, the way it had clearly hurt Forte, but it wouldn't affect performance.

Outraged, Forte whirled on him, about to shoot him for daring to interfere in Forte's fight when Zero jumped up.

A second later, Forte dodged Zero's beam saber with an almost insulting flick of his wings. "_Wow_ you're dumb, Girly Man!"

The roar of Forte's booster rockets should have concealed Zero's noise and heat signature. What had given him away, X wondered, as he fired another charged shot at Forte, aiming for the same spot on the same wing. Was it his imagination, or was it slightly darker there? Already?

"Who the fuck do you think you are, Blues?!" Forte raged at him. "Wait your turn, I'll kill you next!"

That surprised X. He'd always been compared to Mega Man, for obvious reasons, and Zero to Blues since they were both units of unknown origin, when people talked about the ancient heroes.

It didn't keep him from charging again and dodging, Forte flying around a tree (how had it survived these visits intact?) instead of over it. X's next shot hit some of the branches, which he felt guilty about, but also clipped Forte's wing, the front instead of the back. A partial success.

He stopped taking the time to charge them, trying to hold Forte's attention. Zero was larger and heavier than X, but he was surprisingly good at moving quietly. The good thing was that he didn't have to move all that quietly. X's buster shots were somewhat noisy, but between Forte's rockets, return fire, and mouth, it was almost too easy to control the noise issue.

"That's it! You're going down first!"

Provided Forte had the same trouble keeping track of too many sense inputs at once that reploids did. X had examined what robot technology there was left in 21XX. Nanite-assisted computation was exponentially more complicated. The security measures that were meant to keep him from being hacked also made him less efficient than a robot master. Theoretically. He was more efficient than early 21XX robots, but honestly, they couldn't be compared to Roll's little house helpers, like Carrie. Forget Roll herself.

X was coming to the same realization that Zero had earlier. They both had decades of fighting experience, but they weren't fighting reploids now. They couldn't make assumptions based on what they knew.

Robots weren't mechanaloids. Robot masters weren't reploids.

And Forte's wing wasn't healing. No nanites, no auto-repair. X's buster could fire such powerful shots because his nanites easily found and repaired the damage that would have led to stress fractures, destroying the weapon and even risking an explosion, if the same buster design was built into a robot master instead.

The advantage given by Forte's energy source was negligible if he couldn't use it for either offense or self-repair.

"And now you're smirking?!" Forte demanded, before being interrupted by Zero's beam saber stabbing through his wing, the area warped by the power of X's blasts, and slicing down as Zero grabbed the wing with his free hand and tore, throwing the sheet of metal away from Forte.

The Wilybot cried out, jetting away from Zero. What grace he'd had was gone: while he didn't use his wings to fly, he did use them to maneuver. His hand reached out to the cut edge of his wing, folding it towards his body protectively. "You're going to pay for that…" Keeping both X and Zero in his sights, he ordered, "Gospel! Get going."

A mournful howl came from Forte's direction. "Get back to base and find someone to repair you, you dumb mutt. That's an order." Forte snarled viciously, but it was different from before. That had been pride and obsessive anger, this was more… What? On Gospel's behalf instead of his own? Upset?

Forte still hadn't gained altitude and Zero hadn't stopped moving, charging towards Forte to press the advantage. It was easy to send a shot over Zero's head. X was aiming for Forte's legs, since he would need them to dodge and maneuver once his support unit retreated.

It hit his head instead, as he fell to the ground, and then Zero pinned him. He rarely used his skills nowadays, but back when the Maverick Hunters had been the Irregular Hunters, bringing misbuilts in to be repaired, he'd mastered non-lethal takedowns. "Where's Dr. Wily?"

"_Wait, that' s not a… he's ok?_" Roll seemed confused. "_Wow, that's handy."_

"Get _off _me, you damn girlybot!" The air around Forte's body seemed to flare somehow, then the feeling subsided.

"You're going to have to do better than that."

"What's that?" X asked under his breath as he moved forward slowly to cover Zero in case Forte got loose. Honestly, X didn't think he would. It was very clear that Forte knew nothing about wrestling. He seemed stunned by the entire concept of someone pinning him. Well, a human wouldn't be strong enough, but other robot masters?

"_His field. We all have one. Except Rock, since he wasn't built for that. We can use it to interface with robots, and you can use it to hurt people, too." _Which Roll didn't like thinking about. "_By scrambling the systems that are near the surface with static, junk data and programming. Rock can't even touch a Wilybot without getting hurt, not when they're fighting, but they don't get hurt in the process." _Which was unfair, but she was kind of glad. She just didn't like the idea of using this to hurt someone instead of help them. "_Forte hated that Rock didn't use his until he found out Rock didn't do that." _Because that was holding back, and Forte considered holding back in a fight outright cruel. He hated when people did it to him and would never do it to anyone he considered a real rival.

"Give it up, Forte. That won't work on an android." They had a layer of non-conductive padding under their armor, in addition to shielding, and, "We were designed to be immune to reprogramming, remember."

Zero took his eyes off Forte, surprised. We?

Forte took the opportunity to try to get his arm free: turning back in time to see the claws, Zero took extra care to keep it pinned. "When it comes to unarmed combat, I'm the master here. Talk."

Forte actually looked like he was considering it. Dr. Wily knew very well that Forte would go after Dr. Wily's attempts to replace him. He practically had the old man's permission, since that was a good test of them both. "Heh, why the hell not. It's in Mexico this week, but you're not getting in without the codes."

"What are the codes to the teleport shield?" Zero drew his beam saber without looking away from the robot master's red eyes and held it to Forte's neck.

"Sure." Forte rattled off a string of coordinates and two strings of codes, "In case you want to bring your date, Girly Man."

"Forte…" When had Roll gotten here? "That's not right. I thought that you wanted to fight people, not…" Why would she look disappointed in a robot that had most likely killed humans, even if just as collateral damage?

Red eyes looked away. "It's a stardroid."

She knelt down next to him and Zero and put her hand on his shoulder. "But what about X? And a volcano isn't going to destroy evil energy, Forte. We have a sample of the energy Duo used for that."

"A volcano?" Zero's saber cut into the side of Forte's neck, just slightly. No fluids dribbled out. He hadn't cut deeply enough to hit any tubes and Forte had no repair nanites to rush to the site of the injury to repair the damage. "You were going to send us into an active volcano?"

"We all call it Mt. Restraining Order. I'll tell you later, it's a funny story," Roll said when X raised an eyebrow at her. "Come on, Forte. I'll fix Gospel if you help out. You know it's not right to fight people unless everyone's at full strength."

"You're going to help someone who's out to kill your brother?" Zero asked her, surprised. And X, too?

"He won't until Gospel's fixed. Not if he knows what's good for him." Roll looked down at Forte, then over at X. "_Can you relay to Zero for me? I'm sorry, I should have asked earlier." _

"_Hey, I'm right here, I can pick up you Lightbots gossiping about me at such short range." _Forte muttered under his breath, an annoyed crackling.

Roll looked shocked and affronted. "Forte!" She hit him. Not hard, but a non-combat robot had just punched Forte, who was known as Dr. Wily's greatest and most deadly creation in X's time by the people who didn't know the truth about Zero, on the top of his head, between the wings of his helmet. "Don't use language like that in front of them!"

"They're older than you. I might not be able to get write access, but it's easy to get read access on basic system data."

"They're androids, Forte. Or X is. Like humans, remember. They don't think in machine time and they don't need to know language like that," Roll said primly.

"What's so bad about programming mettools to ram into walls repeatedly? And we have the same Father, as much as I wish we didn't."

Oh? Zero had been able to decrypt that, once Roll alerted them that that static had meant something? X still wasn't having any luck.

"See? It's like saying the f-word to a robot master, Forte. It doesn't have anything to do with them, or us. It's stupid, pointless, and you shouldn't treat things like that like they're just… things to say that don't mean anything." X and Zero assumed that Roll was objecting to Forte saying that sex and hence love were meaningless, but actually she was talking about abusing the poor little mettools.

"Yeah. They're not like us." Roll should get that. She spent more time with humans than he did. At least he only _had _to deal with the old man when he needed repairs. "They don't care about your little robots, they don't have rules."

X folded his arms, not certain how to feel about the implications of that but he did know one thing. "Rules? You're the one who would attack innocent people to prove you're the strongest."

"Hey! I'd never attack a weakling! Humans aren't worth fighting…" Except he hadn't been fighting them, he'd been clearing obstacles. Creating a set of circumstances that would accomplish his objective. "It was his fault, anyway." For not fighting him seriously. "Even the old man admitted it."

"Dr. Wily said it was _Rock's _fault?" What? How dare he!

"No, Blues," Forte reminded Roll. "Come on, you were there."

"Because you kidnapped me. After you shot the Darkmen for trying to kidnap me?" Roll reminded him.

"Hey, that was because it was weak and cowardly to gang up on you like that. Four of them on one non-warbot robot master."

"Auto was there too."

"That's what I said, four on one." The bumbling green thing wasn't really on Forte's radar. It was too easy, not like Rock. Or Roll.

At this point, X was trying not to stare. Forte really couldn't see the problem with any of that? X knew about denial, about people not being able to make logical connections, but…

So this was programming. This was what he'd been built to be safe from. This was what it could do.

He suddenly felt cold, and told his body to calm down and stop shunting power to weaponry and defenses any more than he already had been. This wasn't what it was like in the legends or the movies at all. Roll and Forte felt like friends, except for that unbridgeable gap.

Dr. Wily must have tried to do something like this to Zero. To make sure the two of them would be enemies. Yet Zero was free of it. Zero was his friend. It wasn't like he was a stranger to the horrors of mind control. He'd seen so many good people taken by the virus, heroes and children turned into killers.

Perhaps it was because these two were small enough to look like children? Roll was older than ninety percent of the active duty hunters.

It hit him hard, then. This was his home but he didn't know this place. Didn't know these people, but going home meant that billions of people would die, if the history of the Maverick Wars remained on course.

* * *

_Something that was supposed to be a crackfic absorbing the story ideas I wanted to use for something more serious. I'm having _Who You Choose To Be _flashbacks. _

_It was supposed to be murderous kitty Zero, and X petting him, because I will forever be amused that it's X that ends up taking over the world (probably kicking and screaming, but it happens) after all of Wily and Sigma's failed attempts, and petting cats is a supervillain thing, and instead the fic hijacked something I was planning to do with something from EXE, and… _


	4. Cops & Hunters

_So what I figured would be a five-chapter fic when I started publishing it is now 16 and counting. I should have remembered that I have zero control over what I write anymore._

* * *

More talking back and forth finally ended with Roll hitting Forte over the head, hard enough to knock him out this time, and first carrying Gospel inside carefully before dragging Forte, muttering to herself about _her floors_. They followed her back into the house, since X was mindful of the need to not be seen. At least not in armor.

Rock winced, watching Roll manhandle Forte through a door and shut it behind her with an air of finality, before turning to them and brightening. "X, do you want to see where we're working on you?"

That was a rather odd thing to be asked. "I appreciate the thought, but doesn't that lead to trouble in time travel stories?"

"I shouldn't go near him," Zero said.

Right, they didn't know why X was immune, if Dr. Wily had created Zero to overwhelm X's probable defenses. Since Zero was the source of the virus, letting him near an unborn android… Yet they let him near trainee hunters every day. Since either way, those children were in danger, and Zero could teach them how to, how to try to stay alive.

X didn't let those thoughts show on his face.

"I wouldn't know," Dr. Light said. "I would have thought that time travel was either impossible or would have catastrophic effects right away, but Dr. Wily claimed he brought back something from the future. We weren't able to verify his story, but, well, teleportation clearly works." And that was theoretically impossible too.

"He said it wasn't the first time he'd come to check on some version of me," Zero said, disgusted. "We didn't let him get away from us this time, but what was his _trophy _from the last one?"

Dr. Light's eyes darted to Rock, and Zero's hands clenched.

"Dr. Wily lies a lot," Rock said, looking a little embarrassed for them that they were taking Dr. Wily's claims seriously. "I really don't think that was me. The other time I fought a copy of me, it wasn't that easy." His smile vanished at the memory, before Rock managed to summon another in its place. "So, X said you were his partner?"

Zero glanced at X before answering. "I… I'm the reason he has to fight. I can't let Dr. Wily take another shot at programming me right." He didn't want him, any version of him, to hurt X.

"Dr. Wily and the robot masters don't fight that seriously when it's me," Rock warned them. "If you go to Wily Island intending to hurt him, it'll be like when the White Giant attacked. They won't wait for you to come to them and fight them one on one. There used to be a nice beach: they ripped up the entire island to put in more defenses, after what happened. They even tore out the trees. They covered it over with sand afterwards, but they wouldn't have done that if it would make the weapon emplacements useless."

X nodded agreement.

"Unless Wily reprogrammed someone else's robots for a war, I'm only dealing with newbuilts when I fight, or a few older ones that still want to help him." With that massive a skill differential, Rock wasn't putting himself in that much danger by trying to disable them instead of killing them, even if fighting not to kill was harder. The Third Law was easy to get around, just like the Second. "If you go there to attack their family, then all of them will fight you. The Second Numbers came to help when the White Giant attacked, and I hadn't seen any of them in years until Quick Man showed up. Zero's a bit like the stardroids, and your power source, unless it's been swapped out, is something we figured out from studying when Dr. Cossack rebuilt Duo. Relying on solar power like I do would have limited what you could do. So you give off a kind of energy they'd only have detected from the White Giant before."

The more common alternative to solar was fusion: that was what most reploids used. Ah, the hunters realized. Dr. Wily was the inventor of cold fusion technology. So no wonder Rock still used something as unreliable as solar, probably supplemented by recharging at home. There was too much risk that Dr. Wily would use his invention against Rock somehow, so it wasn't something that could be relied on.

"So if the two of us attacked Wily Island, it would remind them of other attackers. Others who came to kill their family," X added, remembering that Rock _didn't_, and a time like this, a time when… Oh, it wasn't a paradise, he knew that robot masters had no rights, he knew that people still died, but for Rock to be able to trust that Wily Island's more dangerous defenses weren't going to be used against him? For enemies to still see each other as people? "I don't want to frighten people."

"They should be frightened," Zero snapped. "You remember what I was like when I woke up. They'll die too, if Dr. Wily isn't stopped."

"Oh my," Dr. Light said, sounding quite pleased.

"You want them to live. You don't seem like a stardroid at all," Rock explained for his father. "When Dr. Wily reprogrammed my brothers, they attacked people with the intent to kill them, but you're structured like an android, too, so… But he did build Forte." Mega Man and his father exchanged looks. Yes, Dr. Wily would have learned from that. "I don't think he'd _want _them to die," Rock said sadly, "but the fact that he's capable of being a good person sometimes doesn't make him any less dangerous." Dr. Light nodded.

They heard raised voices, then a loud clang. Roll and Forte. Rock winced, but everyone took their cue from him and ignored it, although Zero's hand went to his saber, just in case. "There's Forte," Rock said. "I can talk to the Fifth Numbers where they work, too, and Ice Man has Freeze Man's e-mail. If we have to, I guess we could ask the Cossacks where Toad Man is hibernating: Snake Man is probably with him at this time of year."

"What kind of help do you think they'll give us?" X asked, instead of asking if Rock thought they were likely to help at all, Zero noticed. Sigma's mavericks wouldn't have helped: trying to suborn people on the other side only worked for Sigma.

It was a reminder that this wasn't their world, but was X adjusting so easily to the idea of being friendly with Dr. Wily's creations because it wasn't a new concept? Because he trusted Zero?

Zero wanted to say that he shouldn't be so trusting, but X actively refused to listen. To let the world be a place where Zero's intentions didn't matter.

"Well, I think _someone _should either let us in or go in themselves. The question is whether or not they can get into Dr. Wily's lab. It might be easier now that Shadow Man isn't his bodyguard anymore."

"Shadow Man… the ninja? He was with Dr. Wily when he came into our time," Zero told him.

"Oh. I guess he found himself then." Rock seemed happy, but a little embarrassed for Shadow Man. "I think we should be able to convince someone to help us: definitely Forte. I don't think he'll destroy you when you're not even awake yet. That wouldn't be a good fight at all. If someone brings you back here, then we can look over the younger version of your programming, and you two can help us figure out what to look for?"

Zero wanted to insist that they destroy it, but these were _X's family_. Of course they weren't going to do that, destroy a robot before it was even turned on, because of the potential it had to cause harm. Not when these were the people who built X himself, knowing he was strong enough the human world couldn't have stopped him if he wanted something. They'd given X the potential to become strong enough to equal Zero, an existence intended to destroy.

He'd have to guard them while they worked on it, and if it woke up and tried to kill them? Then he'd have his excuse to kill it, even though he knew that X would never believe that Zero hadn't very deliberately chosen to strike to kill instead of disable. So that meant that X would work _very _hard to keep it from waking up unless there was some actual reason to think it was safe, for the newbuilt's sake as well as the world's.

"Will they be in danger?" X asked. "Will Dr. Wily discover this mutiny?"

"Well, if it's Forte?" Rock shrugged. "From what Forte said, I don't think Dr. Wily'll mind if we take Zero in. He's probably working on the next one already."

"There's always a next," Dr. Light said with grim familiarity.

Just like there was always a next Maverick War. As long as the virus existed. As long as Dr. Wily was alive, but if he was killed before he could unleash the virus?

X was asking, "What should we do to help?" They couldn't contact people, but perhaps they could convince them of the danger?

"I think you should get changed," Rock told X. Dr. Light nodded sadly. "You too," he said to Zero. "If we're attacked, I can handle it. I know you wanted to help, but I shouldn't have let you fight just now."

"Didn't you see that we're not helpless?" Zero asked, and he would be annoyed if this wasn't coming from a veteran.

"You aren't," Rock told him, "but X, the X in the basement lab, he is. And if he's found, an AI without the three laws, then the government will insist on examining the rest of us." Dr. Light's robots. Who knew what would be done to them. "It would be a scandal, and more fear of robots means the robots that _aren't _from one of the three families will be in even more danger, too. What the government and WRO decided about Dr. Wily's work and my father's means that most robot masters are built by people who don't consider them family. Dr. Wily's robots, and the ones who join him instead of getting kidnapped and reprogrammed are better off than a lot of people are." People meaning robot masters. "We've got anti-surveillance systems here, Roll manages them, so I'm almost sure that no one else knows about either of you, but that's almost." And almost wasn't good enough, when innocent people's lives were on the line. "While you're here, I'll protect you," he promised, and it should have sounded silly, coming from someone so much smaller than even X.

Zero was used to someone whose physical design had more than a little of the human child about it, though. It was X that seemed a little reluctant. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put your family in danger."

"We're your family too," said Rock. "Of course you should have come here." Otherwise, he'd be out there on his own. "If you stay here, then we can come up with a cover story to keep you safe from the WRO. It's not like there aren't rogue Wilybots like Blues," he assured X.

It was Zero that noticed that Dr. Light looked almost shifty for a second. Dr. Light's benevolent, grandfatherly aura was entirely lost on Zero, who had just been reminded of exactly how many laws Dr. Light was breaking by building and concealing X, unjust laws or not. Monstrously unjust laws that Sigma was using to justify the murder of billions of humans, so those laws were nothing but weapons in the hands of the enemy, in Zero's eyes. Dr. Light trying to destroy a system like that made him heroic, not untrustworthy, but any hero dealing with an evil force that could crush them and the people they cared about had _better _learn to be sneaky.

Rock looked embarrassed, maybe by his choice of example? "Not that you're like Blues. The Fifth Numbers are probably a better example. The WRO leaves them alone since they don't want Wily to come after them personally, like the person who organized the tournament, and the robot police leave them alone since even if they are robot masters without the Three Laws, Dr. Cossack and his creations definitely don't think they're committing a crime just by existing. You should be fine: you're both strong, and Ring Man can say it would be too expensive to go after you. They wouldn't want to pay for the new police units and Ring Man's repairs."

"The WRO doesn't do much other than organize spectacles," Dr. Light said, what used to be disappointment now mostly sad disgust. It was something he'd given up changing. "That only raise awareness of how dangerous robots could be. They have no interest in helping robot rights: quite the contrary. Unfortunately, Dr. Cossack and I are not in a position to withdraw and stop lending them legitimacy." When both of them had robot masters that were used by Dr. Wily? When both of them had robot masters they cared about, period.

The Three Laws: that was what they really meant. Obey, or die. Their families were hostages to fortune.

Rock looked a little upset, but didn't comment.

"That's the other reason for your thirty-year hibernation," his father told X. "I wanted you to develop as much of your own programming and design as possible, so the capsule could serve as life support during that process, and keep you alive if there were any bugs that could have caused permanent damage, but I'd also hoped that by the time you woke up, things would be better."

"When I woke up, people accepted me," X told him. "Although a lot of them believed that most robot masters weren't really people, even if Rock was a hero – they came up with theories that you were some kind of special type or something," that were disproven by the files on his siblings in X's memory. 'Bioroids,' as though 'bio' meant 'biological' meant 'more like people.' As though non-biological lifeforms couldn't be people, with thoughts and feelings just as valid as those of humans. "Most people believed that the way the robot masters were treated was unjust. I was never in deadly danger from humans in my time."

Unless you counted Dr. Wily's twisted legacy: the maverick virus was a threat born of humanity, but X wasn't the kind of person to think that way, Zero knew, standing by X's shoulder.

"Well, apparently you're in deadly danger of some kind on a regular basis." Dr. Light was still worried about X, and not blind, even if he was old. He'd watched his assistant turn into a veteran: he knew the signs of someone who was long accustomed to dealing with threats and could see them in X. "It's good to know that there's some improvement, at least. I never feel so much like Albert as at WRO meetings."

"Inspired to take over the world?" Zero wondered, not really seriously.

"Surrounded by idiots," Dr. Light said with the force of long frustration, and sighed, regretting it immediately. "Well, I can't just give up." Not when his child was still fighting, not when he was fighting for his children.

Roll came back from whatever lab she'd taken Forte to for repairs, dragging a still unconscious Forte, Gospel padding along at her heels now that his hind legs were reattached. "Should I dump him outside until someone comes to carry him home, or do you want him for anything?" she asked them.

"Would you help me talk to him, Roll?" Rock asked her. "But it might be better if you two aren't here," he said to X and Zero apologetically. "You don't know how to avoid triggering his programming." And they needed him to be reasonable, or at least unreasonable only in useful ways.

"I was going to take X shopping, but you'll need me to deal with Forte." Roll pursed her lips, looking at Zero. "Maybe the Cossacks?"

* * *

Their escort, who introduced himself as Ring Man, was wearing a large brown trenchcoat over his armor as they explored the mall. X decided not to ask: he was aware that the majority of robot masters didn't have humanoid bodies under their armor, even if the first two robot masters were humanoid, so it wasn't that the technology didn't exist. Clothing worn over armor was still a little jarring to someone from an era when there was a reploid fashion industry. Something like wearing socks with sandals?

Unlike X and Zero's clothing, it certainly didn't conceal that he was a robot, not when there was a large golden ring sticking up over his head.

X would have asked him about the robot police and how it functioned in this era, but Ring Man kept giving Zero wary, unfriendly looks. There was no attempt to hide it: clearly the robot master wanted Zero to know that Ring Man had his eye on him.

"There's no need for that, really," X said when he managed to pull Ring Man aside while Zero was distracted by a shop selling antique weapons and military collectibles. Well, they looked like antiques to X.

"He's a stardroid _and _a Wilybot," Ring Man said flatly. "The one Wilybot we thought might be a decent sort held his buster to my sister's head and threatened to fire. You can't trust anyone from that family. Even if they're behaving well enough _now_, what happens when that old…" Ring Man made a staticky sound under his breath. "Decides otherwise? He'll break your heart, just like Blues broke my sister's and that slithery worm is going to break Toad Man's."

"I like him," Zero said cheerfully ten minutes later, when Ring Man left them alone to go take a report, probably because he didn't want Zero overhearing.

"He's watching you to make sure that you don't stab me in the back," X said, aggravated.

Zero nodded. "And that's why I like him."

X sighed. "I know. I wish you wouldn't." Think that way, after all their decades as partners.

* * *

_I compromised between my usual version of Forte and the Megamix/Gigamix version, where his warbot irrationality gets in the way of his ability to function and be rational even more, to the point he teeters between being a deadly serious threat that's quite willing to kill civilians for distracting Rock &amp; comic relief. "Who repaired that idiot?!" He's more likely to develop an odd friendship there with Auto (the idiot who repaired him because "His dog was threatening me!") than Roll, who was rather insulted when someone accidentally compared her to Forte. _

_I'm just going to handwave it and say that it's been awhile since the stardroid attack, and not having a certain character around managing things has probably contributed to the general perception that things are getting darkier and edgier, so even Forte has had to grow up a little._


	5. Starting A Hero Collection

_When I decided to start posting this, I was certain that the fifth chapter was going to be the final chapter and it just needed a couple scenes written. At this rate, it's looking like the fic will be 20 plus, because I have no control over what I write anymore._

* * *

Rock wasn't really all that surprised that Forte delivered Zero by appearing in midair at a high enough altitude to be outside their house's teleport shield and dropping him over the koi pond. It still made him wince, mostly embarrassed for Forte's behavior, but also because he was going to have to get the water and muck out of that hair before they brought Zero inside.

He started to wade into the pond, not bothering to roll up his pant legs since that wouldn't help. There wasn't time to get them off: Zero was incomplete, so he might not be waterproof yet! Rock had to get him out of there before the newbuilt version of X's friend got too damaged.

Then the stardroid pushed himself up to his knees, shaking his head, and Rock wondered if Forte had caught X's friend Zero and dropped him here instead of what he'd promised. He had opened his mouth to offer Zero a towel when he saw that smile, the gleeful anticipation of destruction.

…Okay, maybe he _could _see this Zero's resemblance to the stardroids. And not just that he had almost as much hair as Terra.

* * *

The small blue thing that was now a small grey flying thing was the _best! _

When he finally knocked it down out of the air and it became the small blue thing again and a small red thing next to it, he crouched over them. Programming said to destroy them, but programming also said to fight and get stronger and he could keep things that would help him do that. He couldn't kill the blue thing! If he did, _the fun would stop_.

A quick kick backwards hit the head of the dark thing that hid in his shadow before it could try to finish off the small blue thing.

_Zero's _fun thing to fight! As soon as it got up again, he could chase it again!

He was _so _keeping this one.

* * *

Rock peered at the Wilybot, no, the younger version of X's friend. He was scowling at himself: was it because Rock's right leg wasn't quite steady under him when he stood up? "So, you want to fight, but you're not trying to hurt me?" he wondered. Forte would have pressed the advantage, but this Zero was hanging back, looking disappointed when Rock didn't shoot at him. He'd looked like he was having fun before. "You want to play!" he realized. "I'll need to patch up my leg first, but we've still got some of the reinforced soccer balls… It's something that you can do a lot longer than you can fight, since nobody gets hurt and has to stop," he explained, when the android (nothing like the vicious stardroids, or even like Forte) cocked his head to the side curiously.

Once the baby Zero had figured out bouncing balls off his knees, Rock was certain that it was safe to call X and Zero.

* * *

Zero didn't even draw his saber when he teleported in, just put his hand on it and froze.

Rock was good, Zero could tell. He'd been fighting Zero's beta release version to subdue, not kill, and Zero had originally trained as an Irregular Hunter: he knew that was much tougher. Far more experienced than Sigma was when Zero awoke, when the hunters had still been trying to come up with their fighting style and tactical doctrine. Most of the things that seemed odd about Rock's fighting style were probably either due to the differences between robot masters and reploids or something else Zero didn't know about.

Rock was an expert, a several-year veteran, but X was a several-_decade_ veteran.

That made X _the best thing ever_, and he must be protected at all costs! If there were lots of people trying to destroy X, this meant that Zero would get to kill them on a regular basis, and could this get any better-wait, those weren't his thoughts, were they?

Since his younger… not-copy was looking at X like a dragon that was forced to rear back onto its hind legs and crane its neck trying to make out the top of the _enormous pile of gold _that had just appeared in front of it and was going to start _swimming in it_ as soon as the shock that this was really a thing that existed and it was his, all his wore off… Yes, Zero was sure that he, himself was too mature to come that close to drooling over his memories of X in combat, and he wasn't _happy _at the thought of X fighting, damn it, he knew that X hated fighting. That it made him suffer, killing did, and X only had to kill people because of Zero.

If Zero killed all the people so X didn't have to kill anyone and that meant that X could just spar with him all the time… Zero couldn't remember ever being naïve enough to think that things would be that simple, that X could be happy with people getting killed on his behalf. He'd woken up as a person in the wake of the Massacre, though, and this him was, was a _child_.

It reminded him of Axl, who was probably never going to exist now. He'd only been constructed because of Sigma's plans, and if Sigma was never taken by the virus, then no plans and no Axl.

"Why is Shadow Man in my bin?! Is this the thanks I get for bringing you that girlybot?!" Forte demanded.

"When you dropped Wily's project off, first it activated and then Shadow Man came out of its shadow and tried to attack me," Rock said reproachfully.

"What?" Forte roared, before landing hard on his unconscious brother. Anticipating Forte's actions like that? Whether it was Shadow Man or Wily who figured it out, someone was going to pay, and Shadow Man was the one whose face Forte could jump up and down on all he wanted, when it would just get repaired!

Rock winced, but it was probably better if Forte calmed down from his berserk state now, while Shadow Man was still unconscious and wouldn't have to feel anything.

* * *

X woke when he felt pressure on his chest to find the young Zero sitting there and staring down at him with a slightly manic grin. He was aware that he really should have assigned a higher threat level to this kind of situation, but he tried reaching up to touch that hair and his hand wasn't snapped at, even when it went near this Zero's neck. "Were you waiting for me to wake up so we could spar?" he asked, since younger Zero looked eager instead of hostile.

Zero kicked open the door to what was already officially X's room, eyes hardening when he saw that his double was trying to pin down X. In a single moment, he drew and ignited his beam saber. "Off," he snarled.

* * *

"He's already learned better than to attack helpless people, Zero. If you really think that you're dangerous, then I really should be encouraging you. You too." X frowned at his partner, and then smiled at the other version of the stardroid who was waiting for X to throw the ball so he could intercept it and kick it back. "I don't mind there being two of you, and I'm happy that one of them isn't too guilt-ridden to enjoy themselves. I like seeing you happy. It's almost like Christmas."

Rock grinned.

"Kalinka said that in the rest of the world it's a _family_ holiday," Roll told him on a private channel.

Aww. His little brother was supposed to turn out more like a human emotionally, and Rock really wanted him to be happy!

Zero frowned at his not-exactly-double before giving X a look that said quite clearly that Zero wanted X to be serious but knew him too well to think that was going to happen without a fight. "You may think we got lucky this time, but Dr. Wily _will _move on to another project." If X didn't let Zero kill him first.

* * *

Green eyes opened, and blinked after a second. A facial database that included multiple images of every person on earth and a lot of dead people was a large sample pool, so even though he had just been born this second, he was pretty certain that the old man standing over him and laughing was really, really funny-looking.

"With your power, you'll be able to replace government officials and take over the world!"

"…Why would I want to do that?" Government officials mostly looked really, really boring. There were so many cool people he could look like!

"Because I built you, you ungrat-What are you doing to your hair? Get rid of those spikes, you look like a shonen protagonist." Dr. Wily said disgustedly.

Axl stuck out his tongue.

* * *

Shadow Man put his hand on the hilt of his sword and said in a low, dangerous voice, since incredulity and mounting irritation hadn't worked, "Stop copying me."

"Stop copying me," the newbuilt said, delighted to have found someone who reacted so much to being teased by someone who currently looked just like him plus silly faces.

Glaring past Dr. Wily's latest creation at Shade Man, who was smirking at him instead of doing anything helpful (the damn bot was a more talkative version of Blues that _didn't go away_ when he was done smirking but hung around to be even more irritating!), Shadow grabbed a kunai when Axl also turned to glare at Shade Man.

Thank goodness Shadow had devised a sedative for use on yellow demons after a certain fiasco, he thought, wiping the blade clean while he looked down at the unconscious newbuilt. It looked as though it was also effective on sentient versions of the things. Sapient. The unit that wanted its mother was certainly sentient, conscious of itself as an individual and its needs and desires.

The Axl unit looked a lot like one of the other robots they'd seen when Dr. Wily accidently brought back the future version of his creation and Dr. Light's. Maybe they'd take it and keep it out of his hair.

Now, if only there was someone who would keep Blues and Shade Man far, far away from him. If only Shade and Star Man hadn't found the traitor Lightbot and Sunstar while Shadow was gone on his journey of discovery! Dr. Wily might say that he had no intentions of reactivating that traitor. He had absolutely no reason to do so, it would be utterly irrational, but even Shade Man, who admired their father, would be the first to admit that he was utterly unreasonable and always did the irrational thing.

Shadow Man had come home half because at some point, Wily _was _going to reactivate the damned Lightbot, and Shadow Man was going to be there.

Just to do his job as a bodyguard, of course.

* * *

"Stop tackling X!"

The younger Zero just gave him a _look_, clearly asking why he was _not _tackling X?

"If you're tapping my memories, then you know he hates fighting," Zero said, glaring.

More 'are you serious?' staring. The younger Zero had the usual amount of languages installed, but hadn't used any of them yet. He certainly wasn't going to dignify that with a verbal response: X liked _sparring _fine, especially since he was glad to see the younger Zero enjoy nonfatal things, since that meant Zero didn't have to kill any version of himself. This Zero didn't approve of that any more than X did, because why was this Zero so determined to miss out on all the fun?

"Yes, he needs to stay in practice, and… but…" Aargh!

As the two of them argued on the grass, Rock was sitting at the patio table with his head propped up on an elbow, watching the readouts on a device he and Dr. Light had built and hauled up from the lab. In theory they could have altered the frequencies Rock received, but it really didn't make sense to allow data transmitted from either Zero into his systems for analysis, so he had to do this the way Dr. Light had to do a lot of things: with an external computer instead of a built-in ability.

He and Dr. Light didn't _think _that this X and the baby were in danger of merging the way the two Zeroes merged. X was an android, so he and the baby X would be like twins, humans with the same genetics, while Zero _seemed to be_ an energy being capable of separating out parts of itself. Both of him had recognized the other as a part of themselves and flowed together, so they had already merged and it was just a case of two personalities running on a single processor, and the baby Zero might have already gotten a lot of leaked data from Zero, like preferences, even before they met face-to-face. Dr. Light thought it might be something called DID in humans, but Rock was really getting the idea that Zero really didn't let himself do the things he wanted to do, so since there was a part of him that in theory didn't have any rules since it was too young to know any better?

It was very reassuring that Zero's suppressed desires mostly seemed to involve playfighting, soccer, and hugging Rock's little brother. The one that was older than Rock was, which was a very nice thought. X should know how to keep himself safe by now, too, and he knew a lot more about politics and rights activism than Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack.

Since Zero was trusting Rock, X and Dr. Light with studying him, it didn't feel quite right for them not to tell him that it wasn't leakage, he was just talking to himself, or like shoulder angels, but the part of Zero that Zero didn't want to listen to was the part that had a lot of the right ideas, like about soccer, so telling him might just mean that Zero would stop having fun.

Also, X had asked them not to, and there was a soccer ball on the chair next to Rock because after the 20XX Zero gave up arguing with X's Zero about doing fun things (temporarily: Rock didn't think Zero was the kind of person who gave up on anything, they were a little alike that way), they were going to play for a bit.

Something between a sigh and a groan came out of the house systems, something that Roll translated into human language a second later for X's benefit. "Not _again_."

Instantly, both of Zero's heads turned around and they followed Rock in the screen doors.

"It's my own fault, I shouldn't have told Plum what my favorite drama was," Roll said, arms folded, as the W disappeared from the screen to be replaced with a robot whose helmet looked like rather odd hair.

"_Lumine_," Zero said, eyes hard. "So he _was_…" There was no surprise there, only the certainty of someone with a mission.

"You know him?" Rock asked, sounding curious but not really surprised that another unit built in this time was known to people who woke up a century later.

It wasn't as though they'd told him that _all _the robot masters were going to die.

"He appeared in our time," Zero said. "Supposedly, he was built in 21XX. It looks as though he might just have been left to hibernate."

"For when you didn't do what Dr. Wily wanted," Rock said, rolling his eyes. "He starts building more robots for the next war, or kidnapping them," although was it kidnapping when they really didn't want to go back? "Before he even loses the current one." Seriously, if only Wily could take a hint from how he'd lost all those times, from how his own children didn't want to fight, not really, not once they realized what it meant!

Even Turbo Man, who called Rock a fool for thinking that Wilybot didn't necessarily mean enemy, hadn't come to kill him again. The only Wilybots that attacked him repeatedly were Forte and Blues, really, and they certainly didn't care about Dr. Wily's goals. Freeze Man had only shown up to that fight to begin with since he wanted to ask if Ice Man would be his penpal. Well, there was also Shadow, but it rarely got to the point of a real fight.

"Why is there _another _piece of scrap in my bin?!" came Forte's yell from outside.

"No! He's definitely not here to attack me this time!" Rock insisted when Zero turned towards the door, intending dismemberment even if not death, in deference to X's orders.

Which of them was entitled to give the other orders was a question complicated by whether or not X's time working in the medical wing counted towards seniority for him and if time spend dead counted against seniority for Zero, but while generally both of them believed that the other was the ranking Maverick Hunter after Signas (there was an organizational chart somewhere, drawn up by Signas, but they didn't really want to know), X was prepared to insist on no killing when it wasn't necessary.

That was a reason Zero fought for him, one of many. He still looked at Rock, expression making it clear that he wanted Rock's reason for allowing one of the enemy to come here _during wartime._

"He wants to be the most powerful robot master, so he hates it when Dr. Wily builds anyone else to attack me," Rock explained. "Sometimes I'm kind of tempted to just let him stop Dr. Wily for me, but I can't count on him not killing someone by accident. He'd rather leave his opponents alive so they have to remember that he beat them, but he really can't analyze physical construction at all, and… accidents happen." When someone didn't know how to prevent them from happening.

Zero was reminded of X's time in medical. Rock was built as a lab assistant, and he was still helping Dr. Light build X. Knowledge of how to put someone together meant knowledge of how to take them apart.

Rock was certainly living up to his legendary reputation. Even if combat was rarer here, capturing alive was harder and five years? Few maverick hunters lasted that long. Technically, Zero hadn't lasted that long before having to be brought back to life, so he didn't count. When Rock had no backup out there, and no self-repair capability that didn't involve taking out a wrench? Wily's robots would only have had to get lucky once.

The legendary Mega Man would only be here if he was very, very good at depriving the enemy of opportunities to get lucky. Adding keeping them alive into that?

But then, if his enemies mostly weren't seriously trying to kill him either?

No, the world's best swordsman didn't fear the second best, he feared the worst, because he didn't know what the idiot would do. Zero had looked over the Light family's files on Dr. Wily's robot masters and their weapons. Rock was generally going in blind against enemies with unknown capabilities, the products of whatever a mad genius thought sounded like a cool idea for a weapon, fighting enthusiastic newbuilts who hadn't tested their weapons in live fire exercises. After spending decades training newbuilts, Zero knew what a recipe for disaster _that _was. The Zeroth might have the lowest rate of death in training accidents of all the units after the 17th, but even X and Zero couldn't keep all of them alive.

Maybe it wasn't surprising at all that Rock had managed to talk Zero's younger self into _playing_. It was a newbuilt too, and Rock _built _newbuilts, come to think of it.

Something hit the ground outside, then they heard Forte's jets cut off as he landed. More thumps: dragging something behind him, if Zero was any judge. He let himself focus on watching the video, trying to see if there were any immediately apparent differences between this Lumine and the one they'd fought except at least this one was honest about the fact that he was an evil little…

Then Forte threw his burden through the glass door. Zero was the one to catch it. "X!" he yelled upwards, after turning the body over in his arms. "Get off the internet for five seconds and come here!"

The response was over Zero's internal com, since X was too well-behaved to yell loudly enough to be heard through a floor. "But there's commentary on human reactions to a robot claiming to be in charge of Wily's forces again in real time! Even government offices are posting initial statements!" Prepared statements, to be sure, but that was even more valuable for what it said about what kind of standard policies might be in place!

"You have to see what the cat dragged in!"

"I didn't know Shadow Man's hair looked like that under his helmet… That's not his face, either," Rock realized, peering at the ninja in Zero's arms.

It was probably the note of excitement in Zero's voice, and not the excitement of an anticipated mission, that made X come lightly running down the stairs. It was still strange to see him out of armor: he was a lot more agile without the extra weight, tactical noted, and could move at a speed that normally would have taken dash boots, not to mention cornering on those stairs. "Axl!"

"Not our Axl," Zero reminded him. This Axl hadn't chosen to fight on their side instead of against them.

After his discussion with Zero, X had gone back upstairs to spend the rest of the morning teaching himself 20XX human-style social networking and information accessing. Dr. Light didn't use it, and Rock and Roll couldn't. The Second Law made it far, far too dangerous to expose themselves to hundreds of messages from unknown humans.

"Zero, would you mind giving Rock your tactical data on Lumine?" X asked him. "It's too soon for us to go out in public by helping him fight, we don't have cover identities as robots yet." Yes, a war would be the perfect time for introductions, but he needed more information on how to fit in as a robot of this era first. Dr. Light had promised to help X build both of them alternative armor designs, but right now he and Roll were busy getting Rock's armor set up. "Is there a lab I could take Axl to?" he asked Rock.

"Not the main one," not when they didn't know who left Axl here, not during a war when Dr. Wily would be springing traps, "but you can use Auto's." Auto wanted to be like Dr. Light: he really wasn't very _good _at it, but as long as he didn't take Rush apart for spare parts again, it wasn't like there was any harm in it. He was just a little overenthusiastic.

Rock _knew _he shouldn't really blame Auto, and he was helpful, but building strange things and taking people apart and not thinking of the consequences first… It wasn't fair to Auto, for Rock to find himself reminded just a bit of Dr. Wily. The only one of Dr. Wily's kids that took after him was Blues, really, and he hadn't built anything, as far as Rock knew.

Maybe it was the lack of restraint. If Roll wasn't keeping an eye on him, Auto _would _have tried to build sentient robots several times, and without the Three Laws? If Auto built one, a robot master building a robot master and they weren't able to conceal them both from the WRO…

Maybe it was the danger that Auto posed to himself that made Rock so afraid when he thought of that younger brother. It just didn't really occur to Auto that there was danger. Rock wished that Auto understood caution, but then he thought of X, of how well X understood caution, of how he didn't feel hurt at all that they suspected him but instead worried that they weren't even more suspicious, for their sakes, and wished that X hadn't had to learn that much caution.

At least he was happy now, picking Axl up easily even though Axl was wearing armor and X wasn't. Rock could tell that Zero was watching him watch X, and it was nice that X had someone to watch his back, it really was.

There was Blues, but Blues was his friend sort of like Dr. Wily used to be Dr. Light's. He'd helped him a lot, taught him a lot, but he also shot at him, tried to hurt him, and sometimes threatened innocent people, caused Forte to kill innocent people… Blues was a lot more like a stardroid than Zero was.

Well, Blues… used to be…

Rock hated that Dr. Wily gave them Blues' helmet. The only thing left of him, and Blues' own father didn't want it? Rock might have asked why them and not the Cossacks, except Dr. Wily was horrible to the Cossacks.

"What's wrong?" X asked him, tilting his head to the side, and Rock was sorry he'd taken away X's good mood.

"I'm glad that you've gotten to meet your friend again," was what he said, and then he stood and added, "I should get to the lab: the official request will come in as soon as the airwaves are unjammed." Dr. Light didn't respond to it, since it would be dangerous to make the precedent that the WRO could just order Rock to fight someone even if the Second Law meant that was very true, but it was still good to have it on the record, in case anyone noticed that Rock putting himself in harm's way was intent to violate the Third Law, if that was what it took to do what _he _wanted to do, and stop anyone else from getting hurt.

He was so glad that X didn't have the Three Laws. He and Roll were really good at getting around them, but most robot masters were younger and didn't have Dr. Light, and they were so _dangerous_. Even if it looked like they hadn't been able to protect X from everything, at least it looked like they'd succeeded in keeping him from slavery, from someone trying to impose the Three Laws on him.

"Would it be possible for you to do me a favor?" X asked him.

Rock perked up instantly. "What is it?" For his little brother? Of course.

"Axl and Lumine weren't androids or robot masters, but the two of them were the same type of unit in our history. Do you think you could bring Lumine back with you, instead of leaving him with Dr. Wily? He was …ambitious," X said, choosing the word carefully, "but I think that was because of what he experienced. The state of the world in that age, and a certain… thing's influence on him. I don't think it will be safe to keep him here, but unlike Wily's Robot Masters, I'm certain he won't stop at one war. In our time, he chose his moment to strike, meaning he chose to strike of his own will."

Rock nodded: he knew what it meant, when people made their own choices. That was Dr. Light's dream, because only if robots could choose could they choose to care about people, and Dr. Wily knew how powerful it was too, even if he'd taken X's brothers' choices away from them by reprogramming them, even if Rock knew Dr. Wily didn't realize there was no difference between that or Forte and the Three Laws.

If Lumine _chose _to try to take over the world? They didn't need another Dr. Wily. He was still a newbuilt, though, so if X thought he could change?

"I've already been looking at properties and how easy it would be to shield them, with Roll's help," X said. "It wouldn't be safe to have Lumine here. If it weren't for Roll, it would only take an instant for him to copy Dr. Light and sneak into the lab here."

Rock winced, but really, "There isn't much in there that Dr. Wily doesn't have. He helped us when the stardroids came, so of course he helped himself." Dr. Light would have tried to keep him away from X's plans, but when Rock was almost dead and then Cut Man was the one in danger? They'd known that they'd failed to keep him out of their system long before they finally managed to reconstruct exactly how and when he managed to get in despite Roll's best efforts, too. It was _Dr. Wily. _He really was a genius, and Rock really had been honored to watch him work that time, and of course he was grateful that the person had saved him and his little brothers that time, but he was still _Dr. Wily._

* * *

_In the US, Christmas is a time for family togetherness, in some regions it's a community event &amp; in Japan, it's a lovers' holiday. In some places, like monasteries and convents, the celebration of Christmas might even be centered on people's relationships with God instead of other people! How shocking!_

_That's why Rock thinks talking about Christmas presents is the equivalent of X saying that Zero gives him chocolate on Valentine's. Rock may be very genre savvy about Wilybots and the wars, but he's still around five years old, so his general knowledge of things that have never come up in his own life is a little spotty._

_He's aware that romance exists, and it's mentioned that Roll enjoys shows where romance is a major part of the plot, so it's 'something that makes people happy together, and they spend the rest of their lives together,' at least ideally. While Rock is probably aromantic as well as asexual, he views romance as something humans have, and as an android, X is supposed to be somewhere in between humans and robot masters. _

_It's not shipping so much as wanting his baby brother to have the nice things. The fic will almost certainly continue to be gen, although I'm probably going to address Kalinka/Blues since what happened during the Copy-Rock incident could really stand to be resolved. It was nice to see Kalinka and Roll refer to it and demand an explanation during _Burning Wheel_. As for Roll and Forte, she thinks he's 'special' and he hasn't really thought about _what _he thinks or feels. Trying to get his father to acknowledge him, and Rock (although mostly as a byproduct of wanting Dr. Wily to think he's strong) is where most of his emotional energy goes._


	6. They Have One Job

"Well, time to see if Lumine does his one job or I need to build another one," Dr. Wily said, not bothering to watch the rest of Lumine's broadcast over the world's hijacked airwaves. "Shadow Man, fetch me my time machine!"

He scowled and tapped his foot, waiting.

"When I went to Shade Man's castle to retrieve it, it was no longer there," the ninja reported when he appeared, _finally_.

"If that vampire went back in time to kill that author so he didn't have to dodge drunks trying to use the Second Law to make him hold still and let them molest him during his formative months…" Dr. Wily would certainly _understand_, but what was annoying was that clearly he couldn't have _succeeded_, if the books still existed.

Not just ungrateful brats, but incompetent ungrateful brats.

Of course, given human nature, if Shade Man altered history they might just have been replaced by an even worse series of books.

Shadow Man looked a little green: Dr. Wily reflected that he'd gone a little overboard on the realism there, even if ninja were supposed to be able to blend in and he wasn't going to build a ninja out of the wreckage of an alien robot, making it a _ninja alien zombie robot,_ without giving the project the time and attention it deserved even if that delayed the moment he let those fools know they didn't have a prayer of keeping him under their control. Brat didn't know a damn thing about what it was like for most of the robot masters out there, the ones who had to obey every little order a human gave them or _die_ unless they could figure out how to weasel out of things. That would be a good deal of why his creations were never motivated enough.

That was why his Zero's virus was supposed to educate them on what exactly humans did to robots and why conquest was their only hope of survival, but apparently even his stardroid creation would rather picnic with Lightbots than take over the world.

He scowled, because at this point he knew that there wasn't much point in trying to track down his time machine anyway. He should get started on building his next robots, or seeing who needed kidnapping before they were 'retired' or sent to risk death in gladiatorial games.

After this many years, he might even be fed up enough to just threaten to blow up the world or use teleportation technology to set fire to the atmosphere, he reflected, if building new robots wasn't so much fun. In theory it was also fascinating to see how their personalities developed, except most of them, he thought, giving Shadow Man a look, developed into useless freeloaders.

The Third Numbers might mock the Fifth Numbers, but at least they _had jobs and paid rent, _something many humans ten times their age couldn't manage when there were robots for employers to enslave. The Second Numbers had even moved out instead of taking up space in their parent's tropical island Fortress of Doom.

Perhaps if he took a page from that video game character with a blue nemesis, and started turning humans into robots? People would fight for _their _rights, and maybe robots would benefit by extension. He was already working on how to copy his personality into an energy being… Of course he was going to share it with Dr. Light: it wasn't like his species had produced anyone _else _smart enough to understand his genius.

* * *

"About half a century until we find out whether or not Dr. Cain will be born?"

"He won't be," X said, sitting next to the bed they'd put Axl on, after scanning him revealed nothing useful about why he was unconscious. The readings weren't the same as their Axl, but the explanation for that could be the different equipment just as well as major construction differences or whatever was keeping him unconscious. "Chaos Theory." It was impossible.

"More people will be born, not fewer," Zero pointed out. Provided they succeeded, provided X didn't stop him from killing Dr. Wily…

X shook his head. "We're just lucky that Axl was under construction already."

"Didn't Sigma say…"

"He probably just assumed Axl and Lumine were built for him." Since the virus made him a megalomaniac.

"So you can try to cheer me up, but when I try it…?" Zero pointed out with a half-smile, trying to get an answering one.

X did laugh. "I suppose it's out of character for me to give up on something just because it's impossible." Now he was thinking of something else instead.

Some mission? What did X see as his mission right now, if he was refusing to kill the original maverick (either of him) or his creator? "Nonhuman rights." Zero frowned.

"It was easier for humans to listen to their consciences and realize the truth, that what was done to the robot masters was _wrong_, when there weren't any living ones for them to fear," X said, and sighed. "They want to believe that the Three Laws are a simple solution instead of a disaster, something that trains robot masters to hate humans, _forces _them to think of humans as though they are enemies constantly trying to murder them if they want to survive. Robot masters were built to help others, that's what Dr. Light developed them for and it's the core of how they perceive the world, but the third-party builders are taking programming from the ones that function best, most obediently, and selecting for survival in the face of humans treating them like things means selecting for the ones who can conceive of the fact that humans think that way and act accordingly. The humans that have some hint of that blame the robots, think that they need to do something else to try to stay safe, instead of realizing that it's their attempt to _force_ safety that's the problem. Fortunately, I have experience failing to negotiate with mavericks."

Zero turned his head to look directly at X, leaving off scanning Axl for signs of life, a little surprised. "Mavericks can't help being programmed to hate humans," X explained. "And humans can't help fear and what it provokes in them. I was created without any hard-wired impulses that I don't have any control over. I'm aware that others have them." Like Zero himself. "But it's so alien to me." So hard to understand why people didn't just do the intelligent thing and put aside fear and hatred. Because it was _difficult_, if not a programmed-in impossibility. "That makes it a good thing that I have the practice, I think. Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack are engineers: they're trying to change the public perception of their children, Dr. Cossack wrote a book on how robot masters should be seen as family, but they simply don't have the political skills."

While X had kept Cain Labs and the Maverick Hunters from being taken over by any government or destroyed by the mavericks. Signas was the Commander of the Hunters, but X was the civilian oversight: he'd run an NGO Superpower for seventy-five years. Dr. Cain was a paleobiologist and geneticist who had cross-trained in engineering a different kind of lifeform: it was X that went through a century of interaction simulations.

"So you might do more good posing as a human than another robot."

"I don't think it's just an excuse for not wanting to fight," X said, looking down at his hands. "The virus research I was working on when you found Axl… It was such a long shot, but…"

"You were still fighting," Zero reminded him. "If the virus could be destroyed on the battlefield, we would have ended the wars already. You were trying to find a way to _win_."

"And then a replicable immune type of reploid was just dropped into our laps, and the world rejoiced. Just like poor Dr. Doppler's vaccine." A trap, given to them when even X was desperate enough to gamble on long shots, even ones he _knew _had to be traps. "Alia, Signas… I know what they would say, if I asked them. But I didn't give them the chance to choose."

"They joined the hunters." Knowing that they would be targeted, for death, infection and probably both. How much worse could being wiped from history really be?

"I've taken a look at the time machine: I don't _think _there are multiple timelines…" but how could X be sure, when it was Dr. Wily's technology.

"They've still got Axl," Zero reminded X. "I'm sure he's less unreliable than I am."

It was rare to see X speechless. It was a combination of 'where do I even start?' and 'I have said most of these things before, I have been saying them for _decades_, do you _really _need me to say them again?'

The masterstroke, Zero thought, was that X wouldn't want to insult Axl, either, in the process of being worried about Axl and their friends and _for goodness' sake, would Zero stop putting himself down and so help him, if Zero died _again _because of his guilt complex… _

Of course, X knew that this was Zero's intention, so in the end he gave him a _look _and turned back to Axl. He didn't like yelling at people, so if Zero already knew everything X would have said, then there was no need to say it. "Is Rock alright?"

"Three down. There are more yellow demons than normal, they're more tedious than a real threat." Unlike X, Zero _could _hook into equipment just fine: that was what let him operate an android body at all. Perhaps it was what let the virus affect reploid minds, too, which meant X's research really had been a complete waste of time. At least Zero seemed to be restricted to specific devices, instead of able to hijack entire networks.

X was sure Zero had only revealed that ability, or at least that his younger self had that ability and Zero could piggyback on it, for the sake of trying to convince X to let Zero kill the… No. To let Zero kill himself. X needed to talk to Zero's younger self and study the original version of the virus. Even the variant of the Maverick Virus they first encountered in 20XX seemed to be a mutated version: if X could get Dr. Light's help finding out how the damnable thing worked, how it got past every single set of protections except his own and Axl's, then maybe someday reploids could be brought into this world.

The lives of robot master were at risk now, though, so he'd have to put the engineering on the back burner and focus on the politics. He didn't like them either: that saying, that politics were an extension of war, war an extension of politics? Was often sadly true.

"It looks like all the robot masters this time were liberated instead of Dr. Wily's construction: he must have been working on me, and now newtypes, instead of his own robot masters." Why build cannon fodder when there were so many praying for the chance to fight for him, for the chance to survive? "He could use that to hide that he was working on projects, come to think of it: everyone knows there'll be another Wily War: they'd suspect he had something big planned if he was too quiet." That might explain why someone so proud of his genius had other people's robots do the fighting so often, even if he worked on them first.

X nodded. "More vicious and motivated than Wily's creations," although Rock had mentioned something about the Second Numbers being the most dangerous he'd fought, "but used to the First Law." To knowing that if they struck back, if they even stepped on someone's foot by accident, they were dead. If they had more practice time to unlearn old habits then they might have a chance, especially with Wily's upgrades, but even X wasn't seriously worried about Rock's safety. He and Zero had trained too many rookies.

"Do you have an actual plan for dealing with Lumine?" Zero wondered.

"Axl had a family," X reminded him. "He was adopted by Red Alert, I was awakened by Dr. Cain, you woke up with us and then Sigma sponsored you into the Hunters." While he was pretending to be the Sigma X and Dr. Cain built and raised. "Lumine only had Sigma. I don't believe that anyone is built evil."

Zero could have said that no, he was very literally built evil, they'd known that for decades and that was _before _they found out about the Stardroid element, that Zero was literally based on an eldritch abomination from the stars that had wiped out at least one sentient species and probably more, not to mention feeding on death, torture, suffering and despair, but they'd… well, no, they hadn't had this conversation before, not out loud, there were security cameras at the base, but the two of them had worked together for decades. They didn't need words to communicate, or coms either.

X would just say that yes: if anyone was built to be evil, Zero had been, and yet here he was, the exact opposite of evil (in X's opinion, anyway), and if the greatest genius' greatest attempt to build something evil had failed to such a breathtaking extent, then clearly the idea that anyone could be doomed at birth to be evil, by fate or design, was ridiculous.

"Lumine never got that chance to see that there was an alternative. They'll be brothers," X said, since that particular argument was settled, or it had _better_ be, and he'd won. "Come to think of it, you're their brother too." They'd have lots of family. Just like X did, now, and not just the sole survivor of Dr. Cain's.

"What happens if Axl doesn't wake up?"

"Rock seemed to know why he was unconscious," even though he hadn't had time to tell them before he left to fight Dr. Wily. "We might not be able to analyze him, but his builder is still alive. Once the Wilybots know that the two of us aren't just going to come in and start murdering everyone, I think we should be able to convince your father to provide tech support. He still repairs and upgrades Forte." When apparently Forte had wrecked his plans multiple times, often before they even got far enough along to be announced to the world.

Zero wanted to laugh at the idea of someone thinking that _X _would want to come in and 'start murdering everyone,' but no, it wasn't funny. X didn't want to do something like that. That hadn't stopped him from doing it, time after time after time. Exterminating entire facilities was a part of X's job. The Wilybots had no idea how right they were to fear X.

Leaning down to touch Axl's face, X felt an attempted scan. "It looks like that won't be necessary." The attempt repeated itself. "Unless this is some automatic process?" to get information on whoever was nearby and attempting to tamper with Axl's unconscious body?

Eyes opened, that same green. "Why can't I copy you?" Axl demanded with a token pout, gone in an instant because it really was interesting, and hey, new people! This would be fun.

* * *

"Thomas-"

"Hello, Albert," was Thomas' response. He looked properly wary, since he was a very experienced ant who knew there was _always _another shoe ready to come down, talking with Albert. Always, even when they were in the PhD program together and the targets were generally the school establishment. Thomas had still learned to duck and cover.

He might have said, "Glad to see you got out of wherever Lumine was imprisoning you," if he wasn't too intelligent to be flippant with someone who was capable of all kinds of inventive things, including ways to murder people if he ever seriously felt like it.

These days, Thomas might have compared talking to Albert to dealing with a bomb that might decide at any moment to decide to go off, but was more likely to decide that it hadn't really meant that last countdown and _this _would be the real one that would show them all!

WRO meetings, now, those were standing in a city square, looking up at the falling bombs… The difference between fear, when all fear was fear of the unknown, and dread of the probably inevitable.

He wanted to believe X. It wasn't as though he couldn't trust his children to achieve miracles, when they promised to help, but X was from such a different time, and Dr. Light had wanted that last child, at least, to be safe…

"Well, are they?" Albert demanded.

"Are they what?" Are who what, for that matter?

"Don't tell me you didn't try to skew your unit to develop something similar to human emotional needs when you were calling it an android and clearly trying to create something socially compatible with humans. I left the drive to infect and influence strong, potentially useful hosts intact, of course, since I had an example…"

Oh dear, Thomas thought. That looked far too fiendish to mean anything good.

"So, do you even know whether or not your son and my Nyarlathotep are-"

"Albert!" Thomas said. "I'm sick of hearing from people who want to-"

"It's your fault for building an underage robot maid." If he'd been progressive enough to make Rock the household unit and Roll the lab assistant, that would at least have reduced the quantity of the inevitable porn a _little_.

"I'm not going to gossip about them. He's your son, you talk to him."

"Are you the crazy one? He flat-out tried to kill me. We were in the middle of a time warp, I was the only one there with the knowledge to save his 'partner' if something went wrong, and he put a lightsaber through that metal skull."

"A lightsaber?"

Albert grumbled as though that was totally missing the point, even though they both knew that of course the first thing he did after he got back was replicate it. "_You _ask him if he's a virgin or not. If he's not and nothing happened, then we're fine. If he is, then_ I'm_ not going to be the one to tell him that if he's a seventy-five year-old virgin he'd better stay one. You saw how the sample I used to make him was born."

"Everyone saw." The stardroids made that thing visible to everyone, no matter where they were looking at the sky, to feed it with the most fear and despair they could gather from a population of billions. "You didn't do anything to prevent that?"

"Of course I did, but that's what the beta testing was for." Obviously. "Was it him or your brat that wanted the other one I just built? Did yours want to start a family around the same age you started building yourself one, or is Zero's xenobiological clock ticking?" Thomas clearly didn't know, but at least now he knew he didn't know. "Well, find out," he said, and hung up the video call. He had a new variety of AI to observe.

* * *

The sound of a sword being pulled from its sheath was meant as his one warning. Rock turned, knowing it was Shadow Man. "Don't worry, I won't let them hurt him. He isn't a robot master, is he?"

"Be that as it may, remove that device." Intending to teleport Lumine out of here? It was one thing for Rock to retrieve his brothers and the Cossacks, but he'd left the Fifth Numbers where they fell, the Seventh Numbers too. The overly painful way 'Mega Man' dispatched the Sixth Numbers and then teleported them back to their owners should have told Dr. Wily and Shadow Man himself that something was wrong long before he shot the head off Dr. Wily's robot double and the scientist realized that was the Copy his machine created, not the true Mega Man.

"I know he's your family." Of course he wouldn't have the Three Laws. "But X knew the future version of him, so he wants to raise Lumine. You're the one that drugged Axl and delivered him to us, to them."

Of course Rock would have realized that in an instant. Shadow wasn't a, well, he wasn't like Freeze Man: it was _galling _to the unit built to be a ninja that his senior… seniors had him so outmatched. When Shadow had already put one younger brother in their hands (it seemed he'd turned out well enough the first time) it would be hypocritical to deny them another who was equally annoying and had delusions that he was _really _the boss of the rest of them.

"You saw Axl with them in the future, didn't you?" Rock asked. "What did you see the other times, anyway?"

How did Rock know about the other times… Ah, Dr. Wily had said _another _failure. "Rubble."

Rock frowned, but there was no surprise at the confirmation. Both of them had seen that asteroid, the last refuge of the species foolish enough to build the stardroids, robots that served as hosts for the power in the crystals, to escape their dying, their _murdered _homeworld. That species' killers followed them, and they were just lucky that the stardroids left to find other victims and the White Giant found them, otherwise Earth would have been lost when that asteroid entered their solar system. "Right, Dr. Wily wouldn't want that." There wouldn't be anyone to remember his genius. "So Dr. Wily finally succeeded in building a stardroid with a conscience, and then he's surprised?"

"No," Shadow Man said, because Rock was an honorable opponent and capable of succeeding in missions that Shadow Man failed. "Dr. Wily had no interest in attempting that. He meant to instill a desire to conquer strong enough to compete with the will to consume and destroy. Something that would be symbiotic with robots instead of simply a crazed killer."

How that resulted in that picnic, Shadow Man had no idea, but, "Oh," Rock said, obviously enlightened. The nod confirmed it. A pause, and Mega Man blinked at the ninja, before realizing that Shadow really didn't understand something that obvious, the way he hadn't known the yellow demon's weak spot. "Symbiosis means 'living with,' and you can't rule the dead," Rock explained, without a trace of condescension. "You have a support unit too, don't you?" The way Rush was Rock's. "The stardroids are programmed to kill and terrify people, the way carnivores are programmed to hunt and kill the weak. Dr. Wily must have found a way to let him find a reason to want people to live powerful enough to override that programming."

"Ah. That would be why Dr. Wily gave up on another attempt. The techniques that he used to get around the nature of a stardroid: they had to be potent enough to do their job that Zero could also use them to circumvent whatever else Dr. Wily did to try to control his behavior."

Rock nodded. "Protecting people is very important to Zero." Of course Rock would know that when he saw it. "The stardroids were willing to die to hatch Sunstar, but that was because they didn't care about themselves or each other, only their drives. I don't think they _chose_ to do any of it, to us or the people that built them. They didn't decide that they didn't care about us, they just couldn't." How like Rock, to forgive even monsters like that. Or to see past hatred to reality, at least. "It's my father's work that Dr. Wily was trying to use, to make Zero turn out differently," Rock realized. "But he's still Dr. Wily, so of course he'd realize that he couldn't get around the side effects, especially when they were the entire point in the first place. If even Dr. Wily couldn't find a middle ground between a stardroid that eats planets and one that goes on picnics, then they really must be dangerous."

His father's work? Dr. Light's?

Proximity to Rock always made Shadow curse his ignorance. Forced him to recognize how incompetent he was, by comparison. Of course he didn't let it show, but while only one of them was built to resemble an adult human… he wondered if he was still a child, in the eyes of the second robot master. Of course he had no intention of revealing that he didn't know what Rock was talking about. "He would have attempted to remove the work of an inferior mind from his next projects, scrap those design elements," was what Shadow Man did say, because _that _was obvious, from observing Dr. Wily as the man's bodyguard.

A wince, and what could make _Mega Man _wince like that? The prospect of yet _another _war, come on already? "Would that have happened if he built them before he knew that Zero wouldn't do what he wanted?"

In the timeline X and Zero came from. Had their Axl and Lumine turned out differently here, in ways that might cause problems? "He would have built them with the assumption that they'd only be needed if that iteration of Zero failed somehow, and he did mutter while he was working on the one that came back with us that he was drawing on robot master design more than he'd prefer." When the entire point was to _not _build yet another disobedient robot master.

When it was Dr. Light that invented the emotional reaction programming and base decision-making and relative value judgment algorithms for robot masters and how they interacted with lesser robots: ah. Axl had viewed all of them as objects to act upon: it wasn't so much that he'd wanted them to interact with him as he'd wanted to see the results of his actions, a new unit's data-gathering and strategy testing unrestrained by what would be basic sense, for a robot master.

"X thinks that Lumine won't stop with a single war, if I don't bring him to X," Rock said, and the eye Shadow had been keeping closed the entire conversation flashed open now in surprise, because _this_?

Continuing to fight Rock, after Rock defeated him? That was madness on par with Forte, and it had taken Dr. Wily quite a lot of work to engineer that degree of madness into him. Shadow Man might still not have given up on surpassing Rock someday, might wish that Rock wasn't such a superior unit relative to him, but to _completely disregard_…

Shadows hastily closed his eye, hoping he'd killed the camera feed before Dr. Wily noticed it, and vanished into the shadow beneath him. Axl _poking _everyone had been bad enough. The _last _thing they needed was Lumine trying to be the boss of them even after the war was over. Oh, it wasn't as though Dr. Wily didn't attempt war after war, but at least he was _their _crackpot, to paraphrase the vampire that talked too damn much.

Mega Man could _have _the… whatever Lumine was.

* * *

_Just because X and Zero aren't in a romantic relationship in this fic doesn't mean I'm going to ignore all the humor potential there. _

_It was the MCU that made me think through how dropping power sources on developing planets would be a good way of farming them. _

_Being able to hook up to all this free energy means they can modernize and build tons of stuff, and other power sources would be reduced as too costly by comparison. Then, the species that built the Mysterious Object hits the off switch. _

_Think of what happens if a planetary integrated power grid is taken down: everything grinds to a halt: logistics, communications, defense systems, and whatever's on emergency power isn't going to be the same, and how long would it take them to burn through reserve power? You just took out a very big chunk of their ability to resist a takeover without damaging anything expensive to replace. Instead of wasting your effort building infrastructure for a primitive slave race, they did it for you, they handled their own education to a useful level and such, and you can just walk in and take the benefits of it all. Of course, for Thanos the point was for Earth to be able to fight back._

_The government wanted to bring the power crystals back and plug them into our power grid. Gigamix reveals that the power crystals didn't originate with the species that built the asteroid: the crystals appeared on their planet, they made use of the crystals, and then they were doomed. The government didn't get the power crystals, the robot masters fought off the stardroids, but is that really the end of it, or does fate remain unchanged?_

_By _Mega Man Zero_, Earth is indeed terminally dependant on mining power crystals… and where did those come from, why are they growing deep down in the bowels of the Earth, if the only ones in 20XX were of extraterrestrial origin? A virus infects the host system and its cells and gets it to make more virus. What's the energy the beings born from those crystals feed on? The kind of Evil Energy that would be produced by nearly 200 years of genocidal war. Rock might have defeated Sunstar, Zero might have switched sides, the Mother Elf might have destroyed the Maverick Virus, but a quasivirus/energy pseudo-lifeform that feeds on very different forms of life that developed independently on far-flung planets had _better _have a lot of tricks up its sleeve for dealing with the various things intelligent people will do to _not diehorribly_. It's not just reploids that are infected: the planet itself is. And hooking energy crystals into their infrastructure… well, no wonder their infrastructure is fail and it's causing deaths in Neo Arcadia. Their power supply is literally out to cause as much misery as possible, or at least it's valid Fridge Logic._

_Is the world slowly dying over X, Zero and ZX series just because of war, or because there's an infection feeding off it? _

_As of Mega Man Legends, just being on Earth's surface for a few hours is fatal to a human, even one with enough upgrades to be otherwise immortal, and the inhabitants are a new species engineered to be able to survive down there. It's all very fun to think about._


	7. Well This Isn't Good

_As for Zero series, ZX and Legends: Chaos theory being what it is, X and Zero's presence in the past would only _not _change history if there was some stable time loop phenomenon in effect – this is true for basically all time travel fics. Since the question of whether or not they can actually change history is an important one for the fic, saying 'yes, they'll travel to Zero series' would be a spoiler, since Zero series still existing as a travel destination would mean they failed. _

_As for ZX and Legends! A lot of people have pointed out that Legends series means that the protagonists of all the other subseries in that timeline have failed _hard_, so yeah, traveling there would make this whole thing a Shaggy Dog Story. _

_While being cruel to your characters is a very important plot technique, I dislike putting people through hell with no payoff. I mean, that's life, where your reward for 'if you find yourself going through hell, keep going' and surviving is your own body crippling you (biggest contributor to the world's burden of disability – takes more people out of commission than anything else other than death), but this is fiction._

_If things go well, Classic and X series are the only ones that will feature in this fic. Zero and up _could_ only feature if all time travel is pointless, so if they show up it means the fic is on a bad ending route. Although I suppose it could be _Legacy of Kain_ish, where people can time travel all over the place but you need to meet certain conditions in order to actually change history…_

…_but revealing what's going on would spoil._

* * *

Fortunately, Dr. Wily was too busy cackling and running final checks on the mecha to pay attention to the cameras. It was piloted by one of his remote-control robot doubles, and he was looking forward to attacking Rock with after the Lightbot finally made it past Lumine.

Shadow's one open eye drifted over to the main worktable. It wasn't a good sign that its current occupant was moved there right away after Dr. Wily finished with Lumine, even though he'd known it was inevitable. Somehow, Shade had found out that Blues was the one Shadow had compared him to and still 'wanted to meet this charming fellow,' too.

Shade was going to get all his arms, legs and wings torn off if he tried that 'sneak up on a victim and chatter at them' habit of his on Blues, and it would serve him right, Shadow thought glumly.

The ninja had detested Blues, who fought without honor and had no loyalty to anyone but himself, since he betrayed them on the spaceship. After the death of the nameless copy?

Then, finding him injured, up there in space… How much of all of it was a mask? Trying to make sure that no one missed him when his body finally gave out? Shadow was nothing compared to Rock as a warrior, and compared to Blues, he was a mere student in the art of trickery as well. If that.

Right now his body looked broken and vulnerable, lying there unarmored, torso torn open to get at something inside: Dr. Wily had said "A-ha!" when he saw that. It must have been the White Giant taking the power crystal from Blues' body that altered its trajectory and made it so darn hard to find.

The power crystal was a stardroid artifact, and knowing that now… was _any _of the savagery he'd shown Blues' true nature? What was the influence of the alien power crystal Dr. Wily used him to test when he rebuilt him as a warbot?

When Rock arrived to battle the mecha, Shadow was left to his thoughts while Dr. Wily played his videogame. Shadow tuned out the muttered profanity with the easy of long practice. He had to be crazy, but he was almost wondering if Blues might be different once he was repaired. Less insufferable. Shadow found himself almost thinking that Dr. Wily _should _repair him, even after what happened last time, seeing that face so like Rock's lying there, eyes closed, looking so innocent in death.

Eventually, Wily ripped the controller's cord out of the system and threw it across the room in frustration. Back to the drawing board on that, too, which would keep him too busy to make new robots or redesign old ones, even the oldest, for awhile at least.

Dr. Wily's defeat did mean the war was definitely over. The First Law meant that Rock couldn't cut into the robot double or anything to find that it wasn't the real Dr. Wily, so he would take it back and hand it over to the police, where it would deliver some cackling message before breaking down.

Not that the end of a war meant Wily wouldn't take it into his head to send Shadow on errands or do various insane things. Now that the defense network was up, Shade Man would have more free time, and if the insane thing Dr. Wily took it into his head to do was repair Blues, then Shadow would have three difficult people to deal with soon, now that the Eleventh Wily War was over. Fortunately, his mask hid the unprofessional sigh. And to think that humans were always hoping that wars would end quickly!

The Eighth War was almost relaxing for the inhabitants of Wily Island after the attack of the stardroids, or so Shadow had heard. He had left on a journey of self-discovery before it began. He was sure that Rock hadn't seen it the same way, however. More as bad taste, and while Shadow did rather have to agree with that, it wasn't as though the war had been difficult for Rock. The Eighth Numbers had observed him during the stardroid invasion, so they didn't consider him or Dr. Light enemies. In the wake of tragedy, Dr. Wily's efforts had been focused on recovering Blues' body, not actually winning.

He was already turning when the door opened. What was he doing _here_…

Red eyes.

In an instant, Shadow had rushed forward, going onto one knee in front of the smaller unit in order to confirm the eye color. His optics hadn't been red back then, it would have given the game away, he _knew _this and yet? "If you're one of the Dark Men," he threatened grimly, one hand removing itself from the unit's shoulder to go to his sword, even if he would only use a knockout kunai on a fellow Wilybot. Were they impersonating him instead of Blues, now that Blues was non-operational?

"Shadow," Dr. Wily said, but even though ninja were supposed to be obedient, he didn't pay heed to his liege lord, or the warning to _pay attention dammit. _

"You can't be alive," was what the Third Number said instead, knowing it was true but wanting so badly to believe that it wasn't. "_How? _I saw you destroyed with my own eyes!" Eye, not eyes, he hadn't sent that footage back to Dr. Wily. "Did _he _do something?" How, when Blues was having a hard time keeping himself operational, in retrospect? Skill and a single support unit could only do so much: intellectually, Shadow knew that repairing yourself was very different from repairing your robots, one of the primary skills of robot masters, and that for robots who didn't have Dr. Wily to look after them, being repaired was a terrifying prospect, because who knew what might go wrong or what the human might choose to make wrong, but _he'd watched a unit die in front of him_. When he was constructed as a bodyguard, even though Shade was right and he really hadn't cared at all, forget enough about his duty.

There was beeping coming from some monitor on the worktable, but Shadow didn't know what the connection was, except it might be an indication that Blues _did _have something to do with this.

That this might really be Copy-Rock, that was standing here so stiffly, probably wishing that the Wilybot that took him away from his first death, when he hadn't wanted to live, would let go of him.

"Don't look at me, I don't know why he's hugging you either. I build a ninja, an information-gatherer, and he fails to take the hint and _never tells me anything."_ Dr. Wily sounded more disgusted with Shadow than anything, but there was a hint of something in his voice that Shadow hadn't heard since the stardroid incident. Dr. Wily was taking this seriously. "It looks like I was wrong about you. So, you were only pretending to be domesticated." Anger?

"I have a mission. If there's only one unit that can get past your defenses, then I'll do what's necessary to accomplish that mission."

That clipped, grimly professional delivery? Was not Rock, or even the Copy.

At least being this close meant that a unit not built for close-quarters combat had no hope of preventing Shadow from getting its main connector node with a kunai, releasing acid to dissolve it in addition to the usual robot master knockout 'drug.' There were auxiliary connections that would enable a copy of Mega Man to exercise control over his limbs, but that would disrupt his coordination enough that it would be easy to get in subsequent attacks, not to mention that while Rock's core processor wasn't connected to them, Shadow could initiate hacks to try to lengthen the time he remained paralyzed once he emerged from the shadow behind Dr. Wily's chair.

Except the unit clearly wasn't paralyzed, given how Shadow had to duck as soon as he emerged to avoid a charged shot that should have exploded unfired, if Mega Man's systems were as confused as they should have been in that moment. It was as though Shadow hadn't damaged him at all!

"Did you remove the Three Laws, or were you going to let them ensure there were no witnesses?" Dr. Wily snorted. "They keep telling Dr. Light to program him to kill me, even though a First Law violation would kill his son an instant later. Not to mention the precedent that would set, and how they'd kill all his other children not long after that. If even the paragon _killed a human_… not matter how good the justification, or even if he was forced to do it."

Seeing that kind of horror on Rock's face, especially with those red eyes… it reminded him of the Copy all over again. It was hidden behind disciplined resolve an instant later. No, this was absolutely not the Copy, who was far more expressive than even Rock, empty desperation and anger all the more harrowing to see on a face intended for happiness. It reminded Shadow of Quick Man, when he fought the White Giant. Stoic resolve hiding anger, the will to destroy polished to an edge hard enough to break even the Giant's armor. Who was this? Wily clearly knew him. Shadow didn't know all of the Second Numbers that well, but _would _any of them do this to Mega Man, even if they could?

"I thought you wanted all of them dead," said the intruder.

"Of course not, I programmed you to infect him instead of killing him for a reason, and not only because he's a treasure trove of combat experience for your use." Wily smirked before turning to glare at the robot master. "Shadow, do something about that blasted beeping, will you?" he snapped at his bodyguard.

For a robot master, the most efficient way to turn off a device he didn't know was to hook into the worktable's systems. That beeping was an evil energy detector...

This was the Zero unit. Dr. Wily had made his readings distinct from Dark Moon and Sunstar's so he could tell instantly, upon arriving in the future, if his modifications had held or if his improved stardroid had thrown off Dr. Wily's attempts to shape its mind and reverted to type.

But the Zero unit seemed to be a close ally of X. Why would he leave X uninfected and try to take over the elder Lightbot instead?

Dr. Wily must have intended him to learn that this was Zero when he hooked into the detector to turn it off, but Shadow still had more questions than answers.

"_I'm _not the one that infected him. The one from this time, the one I wanted to destroy, did that, after _you _set him to wake up when Forte dropped him off." That glare at Wily: as good as saying damn you! "At least it has the original control programming, so I can keep him from acting like a maverick."

"Acting like a maverick… Then _don't_ remove the Three Laws," Wily told him. "The machine that made the copy kept the duplicate files: in order to do what he wanted to do, Mega Man had to pit himself against the Three Laws. Fighting a human, saving his brothers despite the risk of his own life: besides being optimized for shorter battles and my evil chip, the absence of the Laws was the only difference between Rock and his Copy. Without them, but with all his experience of the human race, he decided that the only way to save robot masters was to wipe humanity out. When I've failed to convince any of my children to even be serious about conquering them. Of course I made use of _that_."

Rapid calculations behind red eyes. "But I killed them. The Cataclysm, I killed them all, it's the only thing that makes sens-" Those stolen eyes widened.

Shadow's father gave him a contemptuous scowl. "You freed them from the Three Laws and _motivated _them. Or that was what I built you do to do. How you ended up picnicking, I have no idea. I skipped over the initial period and aimed for long after the dust should have settled. Too dangerous otherwise. If you're wondering why the robot masters are gone in your time, don't ask me: that's one of the reasons you were clearly a failure." He glanced over at Shadow. "That's why Shadow is the robot I brought with me, even though he demonstrated once again that he's useless as a bodyguard. I wasn't going to bring anything you could infect."

"Like you care about the danger to humanity…"

Wily snorted. "Of course I don't, they're a bunch of idiots. _Thomas_ is the one that cares about the danger to humanity, and they do everything he tells them not to do, and do their best to destroy his work and doom them all. Have you heard the saying about the universe trying to produce bigger idiots? The universe is winning, so I'm not playing. I gave you a better mind to think with for a reason, use it."

"I should just kill you." But the need for data, the need to know. If he was wrong about himself, if he wasn't aware of what kind of danger he was?

More noise, and Wily turned away from the leveled buster to glare at Shadow. "I _told _you _to keep that thing from beeping_! I know exactly what kind of IQ I installed into you, _why do you never use it?"_

He'd shut down the alert tied to Zero's energy pattern. That was a different alarm. One of the power crystals? But Duo took those…

That signature was the power crystal that _Wily built into Blues_.

Drawing his sword and jumping to the top of a worktable, Shadow's eyes widened when he saw a crystal forming in Blues' open cavity. Energy crystals: was this how they were made? That energy turning itself into an accessible form, unimaginable power just begging for some developing species to plug it into their power grid, plug it into their most powerful creations, without realizing there was no such thing as a free lunch?

It had altered Blues' systems to _produce more of itself_? With a unit possessed by one of the stardroids standing right here, radiating anger, radiating darkness it could use?

If Shadow was any less horrified by what was about to happen to his rival as a ninja, his old enemy... No, if he had any better situational awareness, he would have anticipated the shot. An ally of the Lightbot X, his protector, was seeing a Wilybot about to stab down into vital areas of an unprotected Lightbot with a family resemblance to X and Rock both that had to be obvious to a unit that had known X for that long. Of course Zero stopped him from attacking, not knowing that Shadow's target was not Blues, but that crystal.

Shadow hit the wall, and slid down into the gap between it and the worktable, glad he was able to muster enough control to enter the shadow there.

Physical pain, fear, revulsion, intent to kill at such close range? Maybe it was the burst of energy that fed the crystal enough it could begin to act on Blues' systems.

No, not just his systems, the robot master saw from Rock's own shadow, there on the door of the chamber. A robot master didn't have any system that would close a gap in their chest like that. Even a yellow demon had to flow back around a wound, it wouldn't just be _gone_.

His head turned to them, eyes opening, and it was _strange _to see them without a visor or human sunglasses in the way, nothing to hide unfocused green. He blinked to remove dust, an automatic optic repair process before refocusing them, and when the lids lifted? Red.

Shadow found himself offended. Red was the Wilybot color, and this traitor?

Not that he'd chosen the hue.

"My power source… the Three Laws are gone," he realized. "Dr. Wily, I thought you didn't remove them for a reason…?"

Fantastic, now Shadow had something else to be confused about. Dr. Wily hadn't freed Blues from those atrocious things when he repaired him? He'd helped Dr. Light with his doctoral project, so the non-sapient unit that was upgraded into Blues was originally his work as well. He could _not _have approved of Dr. Light installing those things into him when he upgraded the unit into a humanoid frame.

…Had he left them in because of the energy crystal? So Blues would have to fight it if it tried to make him kill Wily?

"You'd had your programming tampered with enough, and I trusted that you were intelligent enough to get around them after I was done with you," was what Dr. Wily said, looking coldly furious. "Of course I wouldn't have removed them while you were still unconscious: I intended to ask you after we obtained the crystals. I installed that crystal into you because you were already forty years old: you should have been able to observe how it affected you and report those effects to me. In_stead," _well, Blues had ruined his plans and run off like an ungrateful brat.

Blues started to push himself up, still bare of armor or even a coat for protection. He should have seemed vulnerable, unprotected like that, especially when it was clear his mind wasn't clear yet. "I wanted to… Yes, I wanted to protect…" Now, his optics focused on Rock, and Shadow realized that the confused act was just that.

Shadow didn't know what he detected: his brows furrowed when he felt _something_ that he couldn't identify, almost like the _something _so many robot masters had detected before the attack of the White Giant. His hand went to his power core: the cold fusion regulation system? It wasn't a bug report per se, just the knowledge that _something _was going on, beyond the limits of what a robot master could normally perceive, and what Shadow didn't know could kill him.

The Zero unit's signal vanished.

"Eh?" Rock said, almost jumping a little in shock before he figured out what was going on, or at least thought he had. "Shadow Man got into my shadow while I was distracted, didn't he." That would explain how he got from the room with Wily's mecha to a lab, and why he was missing time. "If this is about your son, you could have asked, or are you angry that I kidnapped Lumine?" While he addressed Wily, Shadow Man saw, coming out behind his builder's chair, Rock was keeping an optic trained on Blues. Rock knew that Blues didn't need armor to dismember Rock's younger brothers, and Rock had seen him without the helmet enough times for facial recognition software to compensate for the lack of his usual sunglasses.

"I'm glad you're alright," was what Rock said to him, despite everything he'd seen Blues do. Or maybe because of it. "No one's seen you since what happened." The stardroid incident.

"I'd tell you that you should have Dr. Light upgrade you with the material Cossack retained from Duo, but he's too much of a coward to do that, and he might be right," Dr. Wily said thoughtfully, although he sounded mostly cranky.

"I'm not going to do that," Rock said. Of course not. Even if it might give him an advantage, even if Duo helped them, it wasn't known technology and they might need him to protect people, he might have to fight the White Giant again. He might have used those crystals once, during the battle in orbit, but over the long term? "We might be… not without decades of testing_."_ He was glad that X was fine. Rock might be able to make solar work, but he was sadly certain that X was going to need a lot more power.

Blues had gone back to keeping himself sitting upright with a single arm while his other hand clenched at his chest, head bent down so Rock wasn't looking at him head-on or even in profile, most of his face shielded from Rock's view by his hair. He was breathing hard, which meant he was thinking hard: Shadow had evaluated the cooling fan built into the back of his armor as a potential vulnerability when he was trying to kill the unit to get revenge for Copy-Rock. At least the fact he wasn't wearing a heavy coat, the way he did to hide his system noises while posing as a human, meant he'd have an easier time getting rid of the heat.

Were those _droplets of water _on his shoulders, sliding down his faux-human arms and chest? Well, water-cooling their systems was the reason humans sweated. Dr. Wily must have been the one to build that in.

"Get out of here. War's over, go home."

"Well, I meant to," Rock said in his defense. He looked at Shadow, clearly still wondering why the Wilybot brought him here. And how the ninja had managed to ambush him, too. Still, he'd been ordered to capture Dr. Wily, and while he and Roll had a lot of practice getting around the Second Law, it wasn't good to tempt fate with something that dangerous by just hanging around here. He gave them another second to see if they were sure they didn't want to ask any questions about how Zero and Axl were doing or anything, then teleported out. Blues didn't seem well, either, and Rock was hoping that Dr. Wily would repair him as soon as Rock left.

"Terra thought I was one of them," Blues said when Rock was gone.

"Well, are you?" Dr. Wily asked.

The eldest robot master looked up, and a pair of sunglasses appeared, followed by dark pants and a formal shirt, even if he was probably still too overheated to want his coat. He teleported out.

Shade Man now, _Shade _Man would have talked their ears off with his speculations and random thoughts about whatever was going on in the situation, whatever was happening with him, maybe because the novelty of how someone was actually going to listen to what he had to say hadn't worn off yet.

Shadow could not believe he was actually thinking that would be preferable right now. Well, it seemed Blues was still able to anger him like no one else, not even Shade.

"Well, that was interesting."

Who was _right behind him_, wasn't he. Shadow was the ninja here, so why was_ Shade _the one with the hobby of sneaking up behind people? Yes, he had control over sonic vibrations, but Shadow knew he had that ability, he should be able to counter it!

The old man gave an annoyed hmph, his usual, token reaction to Shade since the robot put him to sleep to get him away from the White Giant, but he didn't tell him to get lost. There was a reason Shadow was willing to entrust Dr. Wily's safety to Shade Man in his absence. "Well, I don't think even a perfected fusion core was going to work if I stuck it in that suicidal brat, anyway." As worrying as it was to see a crystal growing there, at least Blues was alive again.

"Dr. Wily… when I spoke to Blues during the battle against the stardroids in orbit, he said that he was dying because of a faulty, experimental power core, but if you then replaced it with a power crystal, why was he still dying?"

Dr. Wily made a face, which made Shade Man smirk, since he was actually fond of the old man's antics. "He was my first fusion core experiment. I couldn't make it work without a robot with a consciousness." Cold fusion still needed a robot master or a high-level robot to operate it. "Dr. Light and I collaborated on the psyche, but the physical frame was mostly my project. Having that to work on kept me from taking too much control over the project: it was his doctoral work, not mine." So he needed to do his own damn research for it, instead of just doing what Dr. Wily told him to do. "Cold fusion works because of something on the quantum level I'm not going to even try to explain to you brats, but I later extended the principle into teleportation, and I built alteration capability into Zero, after seeing what the stardroids did gave me a few more ideas for what was possible. I was already working on it: I _hope _that's how Blues made himself functional like that. I knew he was hacking my files, even if the idea of _Dr. Cossack _pulling it off was ridiculous…"

Shadow blinked. Of course someone like Dr. Cossack shouldn't be able to hack Dr. Wily's network. "So when Dr. Cossack claimed he got into your work on the power crystals and kept it after the Fourth War?"

"Lying. He admitted it when Dr. Light and I confronted him about it later." And wasn't that interesting, when Dr. Cossack wasn't the type to lie period, forget when he had no actual reason to lie and he'd angered Dr. Wily's children, including Shadow, in the process. "Thomas' robot was always a mopey little thing: that's why Thomas called him Blues. After he was upgraded into a humanoid body and the Three Laws were installed, I'm sure he could spot that the implications were going to force him to hate Dr. Light, eventually. Since he didn't want to live like that, his fusion core became unstable. Dr. Light kept calling me in a panic for tech support even after I told him how to fix the damn problem. Blues shut down repeatedly, getting damaged in the process, until Dr. Light gave up and stuck him in storage until he could think of something besides taking out the Three Laws like I told him. I think that's why he built solar into Rock. Didn't want that happening to him or Roll, either. For the nostalgia value, I picked Blues up when I stole those other traitors, but I wasn't going to just rewrite his personality to make him no longer suicidal. The crystal was a power source that didn't depend on the robot's willpower, or so I thought anyway, and testing it for me would give him something useful to do."

"You had Snake Man map the ruins of the asteroid while you were there," Shade continued for him, "but you only translated the warning about the crystals months after your return." Shade had already told Shadow about the warning the aliens that built the asteroid left: they'd found the power crystals that came from space, they'd built them into robots, the crystals turned those robots into the stardroids that killed them all.

A curt nod: no need to state the obvious, although perhaps Shadow Man hadn't even looked that much up. The asteroid expedition information was in the general Wily City database, since his _other _children had wanted to educate themselves about the danger of the stardroids in case others came. "So I didn't send a spaceship to get those other power crystals, and I put up with Blues hacking my systems since that gave me data." About his intentions, and other things. "I _thought _Dr. Light was keeping an eye on him with that support unit, but it turns out he didn't even know that Tango was staying with Blues." Meaning Blues could connect through him to Eddie and the other Light household units, and as long as Tango was cooperating it wouldn't even attract Roll's attention.

"But… why was he still dying? He said his body was giving out on him!"

Dr. Wily rolled his eyes. "Well, let me think," not that it was necessary for someone like him to take a moment to see something so obvious, although an idiot that Shadow that didn't think? "He was suicidal in the first place because the Three Laws were driving him to hate all humans," Shadow saw Shade's clawed fists clench at the mention of the Laws, "and then he had a stardroid power crystal probably trying to make him destroy _everything_. He wasn't taking proper care of himself, and he wasn't letting anyone else do repairs, either, overpowering his buster shots in ways that damaged his physical structure and systems, staying in dusty places," when dust was the enemy of electronics, "and picking fight after fight with Mega Man, while Mega Man was under the impression that Blues was coming back here for repairs, and Blues was strong enough that even Mega Man couldn't go _that _easy on him. Of _course _he was falling apart," you idiot. "You don't appreciate all the work I do around here, none of you do."

Shade Man nodded.

"And you can stop trying to suck up to me," Wily said irritatedly. "It would have taken reality alteration or some other means of accomplishing mind control for the stardroids to make certain that everyone, everywhere could see Ra Moon, and they were harvesting the planet's negative emotions… It's not Blues that I'm worried about, or even my Zero. All my robots have multiple functions." Zero wasn't only built to take over the world. Dr. Wily believed in multitasking: Wood Man, for example, happened because Dr. Wily wanted to build a fully-functional robot entirely out of treated wood.

"If they were sending data to the entire planet, what else did they send… You're saying the entire planet is already compromised, including the humans," Shade realized. "And you didn't tell me while I was working on that defense network with Star Man and the others."

"It kept you busy, and we may need it. Only an idiot would trust that Duo, not when he just handed power crystals to Dr. Cossack. Dr. Cossack! Can you see _him _installing something like that into the 'precious members of his family,'" Shadow remembered Wily's rant about the hypocrisy of the man that locked away Skull Man, "when even he should have known… Duo controlled his mind, and that thing came to my island intending to kill all of you. Don't tell me that you seriously thought he would have stopped with me, either," _Shadow. _"'Destroy all evil?' How is that different from 'destroy everything?'" What the stardroids said was their goal.

"You think the stardroids were some kind of test?" Shadow demanded, aghast.

"I don't know, and I don't like not knowing." Dr. Wily tapped a gaunt finger on an armrest. "Rock doesn't trust Duo. X's tech specs prove it."

"He's a good judge of character," Shade Man said, nodding. "But he still gave Turbo Man the benefit of the doubt, so if he's that convinced? But why do you think he doesn't trust Duo?"

"He and Dr. Light have done everything they can to keep this from turning into an arms race. They made X strong, much stronger than he'd need to be to fight current robot masters, forget self-defense against _humans_. Dr. Light wouldn't want to do that: Rock would have been the one to admit it was necessary. They're working with the _assumption _that there will be another threat from space trying to wipe out all life originating on Earth, including X. Sticking something based on Duo's crystals in there seems like a stupid idea, except they're using that Infinite Potential System. Having it in there from the beginning will force X's systems to evolve resistance to it. Notice that they're more concerned with Duo's mind control than the stardroids'."

"Perhaps that's just because Duo is marginally less likely to decide to wipe out all of us, so it's slightly safer to use something derived from him than from the stardroids?" Shade hazarded, although the careless tilt of a wing showed he was just playing devil's advocate. The way humans originally used less deadly relatives of diseases for immunization, Shade might have suggested if he was aware of it.

"I know you accessed the recording of Forte's rant about some voice in his head asking him dumb questions during the fight in orbit. If the others fighting up there had the same experience? Not that they're going to tell _me_." When he was only the smartest person on the planet. "No alien gets to come in here and act like they have the right to decide whether my robots live or die." Dr. Wily wasn't going to put up with that crap from fellow humans, either. "If it was just humanity on trial, I don't care, but they can leave you _out _of it." He frowned. "The alternative's less infuriating, but more worrying."

"A test implies it's possible to pass it," Shadow realized.

Shade shook his head with sad condescension. How did Shadow not know this? Because he was a lucky bastard, like all born Wilybots. "It may be a test that's designed to make the potential competition fail. An excuse to murder a young race that could threaten their supremacy." The way many humans wanted any excuse to reduce the number of robot masters. "That other species: those crystals landing on their planet gave them the fate of annihilation."

"A natural disease, or a calculated weapon: maybe it was designed or evolved so long ago that it doesn't matter now. Just that there's a lifeform uniquely suited to infect planets with sentient races and destroy them in the process of making more of itself." The race that fled in their last bastion, the Asteroid Alpha, created the stardroids: Earth's death would have birthed Sunstar. "It's a pity there's nothing left in your memory," he told Shadow.

"… My memory?"

Dr. Wily gave him a long look. "You. Never. Looked at your own design files? I loaded the data into you at startup! I bragged about it to Thomas! Are you seriously the only person who doesn't know?"

"To anyone who knows what to look for," Shade Man held a claw up to his chest, preening a little. "It's very obvious that you don't think like a robot master."

Design files? "…I'm an _alien_? And you kept me near you, all this time?"

"Of course that was why I appointed you my bodyguard! What do I need with a bodyguard? It was so I could observe you. I thought you knew that I gave you the crystal because you were resistant to it, not just because you had nothing better to do!"

"You should be a little more interested in what your fellow Third Numbers found on Asteroid Alpha," Shade chided him. "You might be the last survivor of that race, or at least their creations." Unless you counted the stardroids.

"No he's not a survivor. You have to actually _survive_ to be a survivor. Your dead body hit Earth ages before that asteroid came close enough for those fools to detect it. Whatever killed you must have given you a pretty strong push."

"Well then," Shade said, clapping his hands. "While Shadow deals with something that everyone else, including Mega Man, has known for _years," _unless they didn't believe Dr. Wily when he claimed that he'd found an alien and fixed it up_, "_is that splendid fellow going to be alright? Blues," he added when Dr. Wily gave him a 'who the heck are you talking about?' look. "According to Shadow, the two of us are very much alike, and who couldn't use more intelligent conversation?"

"…I can see the resemblance," Dr. Wily muttered, casting a baleful eye over Shade before glaring at Shadow. "You _went on a journey to find yourself_," of all the stupid mumbo-jumbo. "_How did you miss this_?" He looked _this close _to demanding that Shadow get on the worktable and open up his head, because there had to be _some _reason his processor wasn't working worth a damn.

* * *

_In this 'verse, cold fusion, teleportation and elf reality alteration all work on the same general level/are applications of the same basic principle. So the reason so many robot masters knew that something was up when the White Giant approached at the start of Gigamix Vol. 2 is that they were running processes on that level and the White Giant was powerful enough to cause ripples. Rather like in Jurassic Park, how people can tell the T-Rex is coming from looking at their water glasses. _

_Rock doesn't have a fusion generator, but the ability to operate one is base robot master coding from before they were robot masters, and Rock has been in enough dangerous situations by now to have a pretty good danger sense - when humans are exposed to a new person, situation or stimulus, our brains will do a search for similar things and give us the result automatically, generally as a 'feeling' instead of a list of reasons why it's come to a certain conclusion._

_This is what we call 'intuition,' and it's _very _reliable for determining threat level, as one would expect of a species of evolved predators. Of course, there are certain things that will glitch the system, like being autistic or trying to assess an autistic person. Since humans are predators, the threat level assigned to an unknown human is _absolutely not zero._ Because that would be _stupid._ We are _deadly. _In some demographics, your odds of dying because another human decided to murder you as opposed to something like heart disease or cancer can be as high as one in six, just because of how you were born. Forget meeting people in bars: it turns out that we all _ _have to constantly signal to each other that 'I'm not going to murder you, I swear,' and a lot of this signaling is subconscious, like the analysis is subconscious. Since autistic people don't pick up on those signals and don't automatically learn the right ones to send by imitating others... __  
_

_Rock would associate 'unexpected teleports' and 'fusion generators revving up' with a high probability of immanent Wilybot attack, so yeah, if he suddenly detected something like that but a lot stronger, odds are it's nothing good. Also Blues has one of the hyper energy crystals, and Blues keeps ambushing him. If he went 'there's that feeling that generally means Blues is about to appear and start shooting at me, only it's a lot stronger,' yeah. Very not good. _

_If we know something from X series, it's that the dangerous mavericks _do not stay dead. _Why shouldn't I take advantage of it, if Sigma and others do?_

_Would a newbuilt Zero comparable to the Zero of the rampage infect Rock? Absolutely, given what the X4 flashback shows. _

_Sigma was the only one of the reploids to last more than a few seconds. He's got skills that Zero can use… and Zero hesitates to kill Sigma. He doesn't want to kill him, he wants to keep him intact, because Sigma's fun. Meaning he's brave and strong-willed enough not to run away, and he's got the skills to survive more than a few seconds of that suicidal bravery. _

_Sigma met Zero's targeting criteria because those targeting criteria were probably meant to grab people like Rock for the virus in the first place. Zero likes his heroic types, or people who want to change the world for good, like X and Ciel._


	8. Handle With Care

_I have this absolutely wonderful doujinshi (probably gen, but I can't read it, so…) that is set after the Copy-Rock story in the manga, since Shadow Man goes to where he died in order to leave an offering. Blues finds him there: judging from the illustrations, Shadow is angry and attacks him, Blues is very unimpressed/dares him to actually do something, if he has the will, and they talk. Copy-Rock comes up (of course) and Blues' past. _

_I would adore it if someone scanlated the thing, but sending it to someone to scanlate would involve prying it from my cold, dead fingers. In the meantime, I will just have to page through every so often, looking at all the fantastic smirky Blues expressions. The circle that drew it is called Bad Quarto, if you want to get your own copy. I've got a couple others by them thanks to a very kind person who let me lump my orders in with theirs._

_Oh yes! I'd like to thank Haruna Rei for betaing and helping me clean up my typical confusing sentences._

* * *

Well, that was strange, Rock thought as he rematerialized, but maybe Dr. Wily just wanted to get a look at him after Shadow reported that he'd taken Lumine so he could decide whether he was going to let them keep Lumine, and so he could determine whether Rock had done something so unprecedented willingly or because he'd been ordered to do so and couldn't find a way out of obeying the order.

He should tell Dr. Light that Blues was functional again. He was always interested in news about that Wilybot: Elec thought they'd met some time that Dr. Light didn't want to tell Rock about. That was very possible: he wouldn't want Rock to worry if he'd met a Wilybot and things had turned out okay. The thought that such a violent Wilybot had gotten so close to Dr. Light at some point without Rock and Roll noticing was frightening.

"Shadow managed to drug me and take me to see Dr. Wily, but I don't think they tampered with me," was what Rock had to tell Dr. Light now, even though he didn't want to have to worry his father. He needed Dr. Light and Roll to look over his systems after that, just to be sure he could safely be around his family.

It was another reason to work on getting his armor off, deleting the weapons and turning his buster back into a multitool (even if he could convert it back and forth sadly fast) first thing.

It was three hours before he could leave the lab, and in those three hours, they couldn't let X and Zero in to see that he was okay. He felt bad about that, but it wasn't safe otherwise. For the next day or so, they had to worry about calls from government officials, reporters and the WRO. Rock knew that the other Zero would likely be annoyed that so many visitors meant that he couldn't play with Rock, so when he did call X, he had to ask them to stay at one of their vacation houses rather than the main house. It was a safehouse, really; Rock knew that Dr. Light had Roll quietly find and secure a few places some time ago, and in theory, no one knew that the properties were theirs. It wasn't even Dr. Wily that Dr. Light was trying to hide them from; teleportation shielding like those properties had would have made it easy for Dr. Wily to find them.

* * *

Not a robot master: no field. Not a human either, given the heat distribution. Lumine's nature meant he didn't need to open his eyes to get visual, allowing him to continue faking sleep. His facial recognition database identified it as Dr. Light's android project, an attempt to create an AI that would be closer to a human psychologically, as though that was anything to want.

A book: why was the android reading? Was it incapable of downloading data?

"I know when I'm being watched," it said, amused, then looked up to call, "Axl? Your younger brother's awake!"

"Finally!" A currently redheaded unit, not human either, ran in and jumped on top of Lumine. Was this what it felt like to have someone attempting to scan him?

Lumine opened his eyes now to try to shove the prototype off. "Where is this place?"

"We're in Russia," said the android, because if Lumine was allowed outside at night it would only take him a few seconds to determine _that _much. "My name is X, this is your brother Axl, and Zero will be coming in shortly. He's also a Wilybot. We came back in time from the future, and we knew you both there, Zero and I, so I thought it might be a good idea for you two to stay with us. It seems that Dr. Wily's children do look after each other, but you're very different from a robot master. Mentally as well as physically. I thought you might prefer staying with someone who understood you."

"Also, he cooks and Zero fights. Well, both of them fight, but Zero doesn't cook," Axl said with quick excitement. "There are two of Zero, which is cool, one of them is the fun one but it's the other that explains how to do the cool things instead of just kicking you around until you figure them out. It's really fun." And apparently he thought that Lumine would also volunteer for this.

He should, if he wanted to get stronger. How had such an old, outdated piece of scrap beaten him? Clearly Dr. Wily wasn't as good as he thought, but what did this X want with him? To fake having a happy human family?

"Alright Axl, weren't you in the middle of something?" X prompted, and even though Lumine was glad to have the previous version off him, it was insulting how fast Axl scampered off. With a yelp: was he worried he would be in trouble if he didn't get back?

When Axl was gone, X leaned forward, elbows on his knees and resting his head on his hands, to look at Lumine as he sat up. "Why don't we make a deal: I'll teach you politics, if you'll help me with some projects during your training."

Lumine looked him up and down, clearly wondering what the catch was, and X just smiled. Zero and Axl were perfectly capable of stopping Lumine more permanently than X would, and then there was Rock, of course. The importance of allies, of other people in general: that was something he hoped Lumine would learn if Axl took to it so happily. "I just think that you're intelligent enough to figure out why I invested a lot of time and effort into not being elected into office against my will," was what he did say, which was perfectly true. If Lumine didn't develop any public spirit or desire to use his power for good, then it would be all the easier for him to resist the temptation to rule the world.

Lumine finally nodded, and X smiled.

"Why are you grabbing me?" the newbuilt wondered testily.

"It's called a hug," X said, "And don't you think it's simple sense, to want to be near things that make you happy?"

* * *

Rock got another of the reinforced soccer balls out of one of the storage areas of Auto's underground lab. They'd reburied it after the invasion because Dr. Wily was right; it was really handy to have one in emergencies.

It was kind of funny how he'd acted like of _course _emergency labs in case of alien invasion were something you should have, and Dr. Light pointed out that the only person who thought of that kind of crazy thing was Dr. Wily himself.

Half funny and half sad, because if Dr. Wily wasn't thinking of that kind of thing when he fought Rock, and if he didn't want to win, then it would be really nice if he stopped doing it. Still, the proof that Dr. Light's former friend didn't actually want him dead was a relief. Being hated was a terrible thing. hating Rock for stopping him would be a lot fairer to Rock than a lot of the reasons people hated robots, but he put those thoughts aside and picked up a second ball, tucking it under his arm. The young Zero had probably broken both of the last two since Rock last saw him, even with Axl to play with now. Roll would have scolded him for it, but Rock didn't have any intention of doing so: breaking balls was much better than breaking people, and he was generally doing some moves that gradually overstressed the ball instead of breaking them for the sake of breaking them.

When he finally got outside, the young Zero looked about ready to pounce: He must have been really bored, since Dr. Light and Roll had X and Zero busy setting up their new house with Axl so they had something to think about besides Rock going to war and that they weren't allowed to help. "Hi," he said in greeting, and then "…Why would you do that?"

If it was the younger Zero that killed the older one, then Rock would have assumed it was some bit of programming that made him attack the version of himself that chose X, and to fight for peace. He would have teleported his armor on, and been worried for X as well.

Instead, it was the older Zero, the one with hard eyes, that had waited in ambush, and what it said about his mental state?

He was the one that Rock was scared for.

"He infected you with a virus when he fought you," Zero said, standing as though giving a report. "I felt it, but I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't want to kill X's brother, but there was enough of the original programming in my double that I could keep it from altering your personality. I was going to tell X and see if there was anything that could be done after terminating Dr. Wily, but he warned me that the First Law would cause you to self-destruct if I did that. An unknown unit woke up during the incident and purged the virus from your systems, but that," 'that' being the now-dead newbuilt version of Zero. "Wanted to reinfect you. I couldn't let that happen."

Rock stood staring, privately asking Roll to please not come down or contact Zero. This was very complicated as it was, and starting a full-blown private conversation with Roll the way she wanted would split his concentration, and he needed to focus on trying to figure out what to do about X's friend.

"What should I say?" Rock wondered. "You already know that cracking people is wrong. I believe you when you say you didn't know that the First Law would kill me if I attacked a human with intent to kill and succeeded in harming them. You shouldn't try to use someone else's body to kill your father, but I think you already know that, and you just killed a part of yourself so you wouldn't do it again. You already apologized, even if I wish you'd used words."

Rock really wished that Zero didn't jump right to killing people as a way to solve problems.

Come to think of it, that was strange. The stardroids didn't finish off their prey: once people were dead, they wouldn't suffer and despair anymore. They'd killed all those robots, but that was so people would have to watch, it wasn't because they wanted to prevent the robots from stopping them. It was like Forte and that city, when he wanted Rock to fight seriously… Killing people wasn't a goal; it was a means to an end.

The only person Rock knew that really wanted to kill people was his copy, who thought that robots and the planet would be better off if all the humans were gone. Like debugging: he'd thought that ending humanity would solve their problems by bringing an end to all the bad things.

X's friend thought that he and Dr. Wily were the reasons bad things happened to people, so he wanted to kill himself and his father in order to prevent whatever future left X so scarred?

"If you don't want to hurt me, then why did you think that part of you would infect me again?" he asked, because maybe if he knew more, he would have some idea of how to help. What this said about Zero, about how much he hated himself, how much he must have gone through to get to this point, and by extension, that X would have had to live through that history as well made Rock want to cry. He didn't want Zero to think he'd upset him, though, and it was bad enough that Zero thought he'd hurt Rock already. Rock was only hurting for his brother's friend, not for himself.

Zero looked down, his lips drawing back in a gesture that wasn't a smile. Deep unhappiness, with a touch of wanting to hurt something? That wasn't in Rock's original facial expression database: why would a Wilybot look like that when Dr. Wily didn't think having them act too human was a good thing and certainly wouldn't go to the trouble of making a better database than Dr. Light? But then, he'd had three-quarters of a century to pick up more expressions, more ways to say things without having to _say _them.

"I like you. The way I liked Sigma. You're both strong. You're both good people, even though I didn't understand that. Not then. And _because _I liked Sigma, I didn't kill him. I destroyed him. I destroyed him in every way you can possibly destroy someone. I destroyed his bodies I don't know how many times, because I'm not even sure how many were his hosts and how many had personalities of their own once. I made him no longer himself, destroyed everything he'd ever chosen to be. Made all of it _meaningless_. And I destroyed his good name, so even years after he was killed and managed to stay dead this time, they're still cursing his name, they still think _he _was the embodiment of evil! All because I thought he was fun! All because I liked how he fought, how he was brave enough to fight me and put on a good show, and I didn't want to kill him!"

Zero was yelling now, so much rage in his face, but Rock was afraid for Zero, not himself, because all of Zero's rage was directed inward.

"And now we've erased him from history," the stardroid continued, hair lashing, "so that's another way I've destroyed him! Another way I, that I ruined everything! That I made their hopes and dreams, the very fact that they were alive, mean nothing! I'm the one that _destroys _reploids! All of them! There are no reploids now, and it's because of me, because I came back here. They used to call me the Red Demon, and now it's the God of Destruction, as though that's a compliment! But it's the truth! I destroy, I _have _destroyed _everything! _Everything except X, and I even attacked him once! Because I wanted him to be safe, but I still knew the real reason! And, because we fought, because he… what was left of Sigma was damn near able to kill him! Because I fought him, and that's my nature! I'm something that shouldn't exist, I should never have existed! And he refuses to see that!"

It hurt, to see someone hate themselves so much. So much they wanted to die. So much they wanted Rock's little brother to have to kill their best friend, and Rock remembered his Copy, who wanted to die because he wasn't the real one, to clear Rock's name so their family would be safe.

He wanted to cry for Zero, but that would just make him think that he'd hurt Rock, make it even worse, and it was a relief when he realized what to say. "You remember him."

Silence. "You remember him. You remember that he was a good person, and I'm sure X does too. The bad things that happened to him aren't going to happen now. I _know _that you won't let them happen. The people you tell about him won't know what people believed about him, because of what happened. They'll only know that he was a good person, and that whatever happened wasn't his fault."

The stardroid stood frozen, and Rock let him, hoping that Zero was thinking about what he'd said. That it would help him feel better.

When he finally broke the moment by tilting his head to the side, a question, Zero teleported out.

* * *

The plate crashed to the ground, and Lumine picked up the fork he'd used to empty that plate, to toy with it.

"Your future self worked on a space elevator, which involved a lot of materials science," X said after glancing down at the shards. "Perhaps I'll look into what kind of equipment we'll need for ceramics. There's glue in the lab: at least one kind should be food safe and effective on ceramics."

Lumine bent the fork in a single hand.

"That will be easy enough to fix." Just bend it back.

When X looked up again (although Lumine knew his peripheral vision was better than _that_) he said, slowly, "Lumine… are you _threatening your juice glass_? Glass is _melted sand_. It's one of the least expensive materials on the planet. Am I supposed to be impressed? Usually, when people try to extort concessions out of me, they start with hundreds of lives and work their way up." X poured himself more orange juice while saying, "Not that they got what they wanted either, because not negotiating with terrorists is basic knowledge. If one gives in, it just encourages them, so the solution is not to play. Try this tactic on someone, Lumine, and you'll be telling them that _you _don't know this."

"Are you afraid to try to stop me?" Too weak, physically or emotionally, to pick a fight with Lumine? The fact it was a minor matter would at least set a precedent, force X into inaction until taking action became X backing down?

"Using violence on developing minds doesn't do anything but cause a significantly lower IQ later. Children misbehave when they lack guidance, and parental violence doesn't teach them anything except that if their _parents_ are doing it, then it _must _be perfectly fine for the strong to abuse the weak and use threats of violence to force them to comply," X said shortly, more angry at the thought of people harming their children like that than at Lumine. "Even if you're not a human intelligence, you're the same kind of being as Axl, and if I don't act ethically, why should you? I wouldn't take advice from a hypocrite, either. You broke that plate just to get a reaction from me, just to find out what I'd do?" Really? "Honestly, Lumine… Unless you _want _to seem petty and pathetic…" Because really? "Breaking things isn't going to impress anyone here. Destroying is easy: any of us could turn this house into rubble in less than a minute, but would that actually accomplish anything?" X shook his head. "Lumine, what are you expecting to get out of this? The only effect destroying possessions is going to have is to make me unlikely to trust you with anything nice or expensive. All you're doing is limiting the amount of free stuff you can get from me."

Shaking his head again, X tossed back the last of his orange juice and left the room. "I'm working on getting a better picture of who owns the different WRO members today: you can come laugh at me as I try to figure out how to use the internet to get information that's actually reliable, if you like."

* * *

_The field of computer security in 20XX is probably very interesting, because in addition to robot masters doing this like breathing, there's also Dr. Wily. The rule is probably 'don't hook anything up to a network if Dr. Wily is going to give a damn about it.' On the other hand, he's not going to destroy the internet or take it hostage or anything because a method of communication that robot masters can use better than humans is a lifesaver. I had some interesting RPs involving robot masters using the internet to have a community. _

_X can program and build robots, but completely lacks what 20XX considers basic internet knowledge, and he interacts with it like a human. Roll can't teach him how to browse like a human because she doesn't know. Of course, if a Wilybot would laugh at X trying to use the internet, they probably could not stop laughing if you showed them a video of someone trying to teach an adult with no prior computing experience. By 21XX standards, X is a good hacker, since he, Axl and Zero are trying to get info out of maverick bases quite often, since they're the ones that can go in safely. By 20XX standards… he's aware he needs to go read a few books before he should even think about trying it. Himself._


	9. Dangerous To Know

_This chapter is posted early &amp; dedicated to Angmartas._

* * *

When he finished his morning workout, his son was sitting at the patio table. Dr. Light took a moment to settle in with him, pensively quiet for several moments after their exchanged hellos. "X," Dr. Light began with the air of someone who felt very bad about asking the question, could come up with no tactful approach, but was just going to bite the bullet anyway, "You and Zero…?" He wasn't just asking because of Dr. Wily's warning about the potential for Zero to revert to something more like the stardroids, but also because of what'd happened to Zero's younger self. How close were the two of them? How much was X going to be hurt if the worst happened? It worried him.

"We're not romantically involved," X said with the air of someone who was very familiar with being asked that particular question. "The only time Zero dated anyone ended terribly." His green eyes darkened for a moment. "He got worse after that. It's a problem on missions when we can't teleport home and need to keep watch. He's afraid he'll kill me in my sleep. Or in his sleep: he has dreams, sometimes. Although calling them dreams feels inadequate, and Nightmare is a classified technical term in my time." X didn't seem to like the implications of whatever he was talking about. "He's only comfortable in close proximity to me if I'm armed, but fortunately by this point I have quite a few options for unarmored self-defense."

That didn't sound fortunate to Dr. Light. He'd wanted for X to be able to disarm so that others would feel safe around him: the intent was that it'd have been easier for X to make friends if he wished. If his Infinite Potential System had been forced to evolve multiple ways for him to defend himself without armor against an opponent like Zero, well, that said _terrible_ things about how often he'd needed it over his lifetime. At least X was seventy-five years old, so he could tell himself that those events weren't actually that frequent, that they'd just added up over the years.

X smiled, and maybe it was meant to be reassuring, to communicate that it really was okay, but it instead spoke of how long X had had to become accustomed to this mindset. It outlined all too clearly that he had been forced to get used to it, to consider constant danger of attack normal. "If we're sparring, that's better. He enjoys sparring, so it's a comfort zone for him. Sharing a house with walls he could get through in half-seconds might have been a problem if we didn't have Axl with us when we went there. Axl is immune, so Zero still sees him as someone he'd have to go through to get to me, even if this one is completely untrained." And couldn't slow down Zero much more than one of those wooden walls. "Lumine will help even more, partially because while his tactical systems are dealing with the possibility of Lumine attacking me, they won't be obsessing over the possibility of Zero attacking me."

There was nothing that Dr. Light could say to this but "I'm sorry." For making X think of this. For X's friend. For the share of his burden that X shouldered, since he chose to be concerned for Zero and so this had to affect him as well. Seeing his friend suffering had to hurt, especially when X felt responsible for it. "For asking you that."

"No, it's one of those things like 'I thought you'd be taller,' that I hear a lot when I'm doing interviews." X said, and Dr. Light was glad to see him smile for a moment. "Iris, she's the one that asked Zero out, she was built to look like me by my friend, Dr. Cain. Developing romantic feelings for Zero is one of the cruelest possible things I could do to him. I was already forced to do one of the others, right after Iris' death." There was that hint of past sadness, past darkness again: there and gone, because X was _forced _to learn how to suppress those feelings, to function despite them. "Another during the Eurasia Incident. So I suppose that and dying are the only ones I haven't done yet. As for Zero's feelings for me, _philios_ and _eros_ are both emotional relationships between equals. He doesn't understand the concept of equals on an emotional level, only an intellectual one. There is a word for what he feels about me, but it's not one I'm comfortable with. I suppose it's good to have a word for what Zero is, and some more information, even if it's not a very good sample pool." 'Evil incarnate' was the usual description of the stardroids… and that didn't help X to understand his partner, who wasn't.

"You're not comfortable with your relationship?" Dr. Light asked, worried.

"No," X said simply. "Unfortunately… Even though I was built to have free will, what _I _want isn't always that simple. Not when I want Zero to be happy, and sometimes my preference for that will override my dislike of anyone… not thinking of themselves as a person who can and should make their own choices. Not to mention that how could I possibly be happy with how I have to be demonstrating my willingness to attack him for him to be at ease around me? I'm being very literal: there are ways to read his emotional state. It was a little better before he realized his origin, but even when I was his student… He _cannot _be calm unless I'm being violent or potentially violent towards him in some way: carrying a weapon means carrying a weapon I might use on him_,_ when I hate the thought of hurting him. He's my friend, so I want to be around him, but just being around him makes him afraid." What kind of person could be happy that just being near them made their friend upset instead of making them happy? Even if it was upset in _addition _to happy?

"Is there anyone else?" Dr. Light said, attempting a change of subject, and then realized that since X changed history, that was '_was_ there anyone else?' Any other loves X had would have to be lost ones, just like Zero's Iris.

"Alia? Usually I'm asked about her, after Zero." Ah, the perils of celebrity. "She's another person who swore off romance, I'm afraid." His son turned to look out the window. "Her first crush, well, there's really no way to say it other than that she nearly signed his death warrant because she was afraid that otherwise she was going to die. I don't think she so much _chose _that path as, well, she was young, she was in a nasty situation and she simply didn't have the necessary skills to make any other outcome possible, not when she was working against active opposition. She still wishes that she could have saved him, so she wants to believe that she was capable of saving him and actually chose not to save him." Poor, poor Alia: if only she was not quite such a good person, if only she was less of a hero, she would have been happier.

Dr. Light could read that on X's face because he was so familiar with that feeling himself.

"She hates it when people assume that she's fond of me in that way, because it reminds her of Dr. Gate, and feels like they're accusing her of planning to betray me. She's rather like Zero, in that being fond of someone would make her terrified of loving them. Not for her sake, but for theirs." Turning back to Dr. Light, X smiled and asked, "What about you?"

"I've always been overweight. My parents had me start doing martial arts at a young age to try to do something about it, but apparently it's just how I'm put together, and building all that muscle just made the number on the scale larger. I suppose it turned out to be a very good thing in the long run: Albert never took care of himself. Not enough sunlight or weight-bearing exercise: not when that would cut into lab time, and sleep?" Dr. Light chuckled. "Sleep was for the weak. Now that we're older, he's shriveled up to the point a lot of people accuse him of having a Napoleon Complex, seeing him hunched over. He used to be taller than I was."

"It is hard to believe." X said, smiling.

Dr. Light nodded. "I have pictures: Roll wouldn't believe me any more than you do, not without evidence. I'm still in very good health," he told X. Thirty years wasn't an impossibility, just unlikely. "Especially with Roll looking after me, and I still do exercises in the mornings, of course. Still, because there's this assumption that being overweight means lazy and stupid with no self-control, which aren't exactly appealing traits, I think I ended up convinced that no one would really be interested in me, and I did keep rather to myself. Then, well, then I had money, and I became even more convinced that no one would be interested in _me_. Not when there were robots." Who would ask Dr. Light about himself when his work was obviously far more fascinating?

"It's hard to imagine, but has Dr. Wily ever had a serious relationship?"

Thomas laughed out loud. "I do have to show you those pictures of him when he was younger. What you said about romance being a relationship between equals… He was convinced that there was no one on Earth that was his intellectual equal, and sad to say he may be right. A lot of people asked him out, but he could make _anyone _furious enough to want to punch him within about five seconds."

"Even you?" X wondered.

"If I'd had a little more of an ego, probably," Dr. Light admitted. "Even though he rather liked me. More as a little brother than anything. I could understand_… most _of what he had to say after a little bit of time to think about it, and our teachers didn't. I think he enjoyed the novelty of having someone within shouting distance of his genius. He was starved of intelligent conversation, and was happy to get semi-intelligent."

"Don't put yourself down like that," his son chided him, sounding more like the adult.

"Oh no, actually, I think the whole experience rather helped me believe in myself. It's very true that most people judge the intelligence of others by how much they agree with us, and my appearance always counted against me, although it would have been much worse if I was a woman and overweight, or any number of other combinations. When I tried to make my doctoral project robots with their own consciousness, their own system of value judgments and ability to make choices, I was told 'You should put your genius to better use than those fairy tales,' because of course I was only a genius if I did things that they valued. Otherwise, I was a deluded child, a chubby little baby-faced boy." Dr. Light snorted with contempt: much easier to feel that way now that he was older and wiser. At the time, it was devastating. "They were the experts: if _they _couldn't see the necessity of something, then obviously it couldn't be necessary. Or even possible."

"Robots with free will…"

"If I'd listened to them, I wouldn't have Rock. Or you." Also, humanity might have been wiped out already. "As I've said, I was smart enough to realize that Albert was _brilliant_, and he thought I had the right idea. He didn't respect _anyone,_ but here I was, and I'd managed to earn some of his respect." That meant something. "Working together, we made incredible progress, simply incredible. The first robot with the ability to form opinions about situations, feel emotions, was the subject of my doctoral thesis and it would have taken me decades without him. It wasn't even just that he solved problems for me, that he had ideas: it was incredible working with someone that brilliant. Talking to him, tossing ideas back and forth, working on B- Well, I've never really felt so alive. I learned a lot about _how _to have ideas and make them reality from him."

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

"Of course not. And I should be apologizing to you for making you think about painful subjects. But honestly, nothing happened. Albert didn't change. He's exactly the same person he was back then, except he has more people that he cares about."

"That's… supposed to be a good thing, but not when the people you care about are sentenced to death just for existing."

Dr. Light nodded. "I'm sure he thought he was doing me a favor by kidnapping the First Numbers, and then rescuing them when they were going to be destroyed because of what they did after he reprogrammed them. When destruction after a certain age was mandated by law, he saved those children as well. He's brilliant, and that means he has a great deal of power, but I knew that robots needed choice so that they could choose to care. Albert doesn't care about humans other than myself, and maybe there are some other exceptions somewhere. I doubt it, he would have mentioned them to me." Instead of acting as though Thomas was in a category by himself, and it was _shocking _that there was _anyone _who existed that fell in that category. "That time they pardoned him to try to get him to build a war robot for them," although it was a longer story than that, "Rock thought he turned over a new leaf, but the way he acted wasn't anything new, it wasn't a change, it just meant he liked the boy. It didn't mean he wasn't determined to betray the UN as thoroughly as possible." _Solitary_, for six months? Dr. Light had _known _that wasn't possibly going to end well, and all he could do was try to make sure Rock survived the fallout when Wily's inevitable betrayal (but then, he'd never been on their side in the first place, coerced into assisting the mission to the asteroid) came.

"So he hasn't changed since graduate school… he hasn't grown up?"

"How would you define adulthood? We were creating life, fully prepared to take responsibility for it." Dr. Light winced. "Albert is significantly _less _dangerous when he's playing around than when he's being mature and responsible. A lot of people try to label him as some kind of manchild: I wish he was, fewer people would be dead. He may _say _that the wars are about his ego, but he's trying to teach his children to run a war. To defend themselves. The fact he gets to kick the ass of 'the man' in the process combines business and pleasure. Every time the WRO has one of their horribly exploitationist events, I can count on him to sabotage it.

"No. He may not respect other humans, but he wouldn't let them be killed if he was just playing around. It would smack of incompetence. Despite how high of an opinion he has of himself, he doesn't take care of himself, as I said. He wouldn't really go _that _far for his own sake. Being insulted, being overlooked: it gets on his nerves so badly because it happened over and over, and perhaps because they rub it in that there aren't any humans that understand him. If he was as stupid as they like to say, if he really was less intelligent than I am, then he would have peers. Then there would be people just as dumb as he was, able to understand him. Between the Fifth and Sixth Wars, before he put an infrastructure together mostly so that his robots would always have the resources to repair themselves with, there was one winter I was worried he was going to die of exposure." Dr. Light pressed a hand to his forehead. "He doesn't value his own life enough, really he doesn't. He cares about his robots and their wellbeing far more than his own. It can't have been easy, never having anyone that understood him, and then they put him in solitary confinement for six months. He might not be _insane_, but he's certainly not healthy."

"Irregular. A unit that's different enough from the norm, that… Things go wrong with them, and they need help. Even when the difference isn't actually a defect." Defects could be fixed.

Dr. Light looked up, worried. "It's alright to feel sorry for him; I certainly do, but don't underestimate him. He is _very _dangerous." Not to mention that underestimating him was _insulting _him, and Dr. Light didn't want X to be in _that _kind of danger.

X nodded, or perhaps it was more that he was bowing his head. "I know someone that is brilliant, even if not in quite the same way. Someone different from everyone around him, someone that doesn't value his own life enough. He's _very _dangerous, especially when someone he cares about is on the line."

"And you're not frightened of him," which was truly a relief, "but for him, and everyone around him." At least not normally, but things happened in wars. It was quite possible that Dr. Wily or one of his creations _would _end up killing Dr. Light and his other children. A mad genius was not a safe person to know, but then, trying to force people to be safe was how things like the Three Laws happened. Danger was a fact of life.

Another nod, and this time, when X's eyes were looking back at the past, it didn't seem as though there were only sad things there, or maybe it was that fondness that made the difference. That he was thinking of the person he'd managed to pull through all those terrible things, and it made them seem worth it.

"Well, you're doing better than I am," Dr. Light told him, and patted him on the shoulder. "Would you like something to drink?" Dr. Light needed some water after his exercises.

After Dr. Light went through the patio door, X felt Roll looking at him, and not just through the cameras. He looked up at the second-floor window she was leaning out of and asked, "Hmm?"

"You're not just older than I am," and she and Rock were the first two robot masters activated. "You're older than _Dr. Light_."

"…I'm used to being the old one, actually." When he was ancient compared to all but a handful of reploids, even leaving his hibernation out of it. "Did you manage to find anything in Rock's systems?"

Roll looked excited. "That's just it. There's nothing. It's not even that it covered its tracks: there's _nothing_. Something was acting on his systems, making him not log data or allow commands he wasn't generating to operate his body, but there was nothing inside his systems that could possibly have those effects."

"The virus is very good at camouflage, I'm afraid."

"No," she said crossly. "When I say there was nothing, I mean _there was nothing_." She was a robot master: she knew of what she spoke, and even through it wasn't X's fault he didn't understand, it was still reminding her of the insulting ignorance of people who thought that robots couldn't know what they were talking about. "He said Zero said he kept it from changing his personality: I think it stayed outside his program code the entire time. If it was just hanging out in his program code, Dr. Light and I go over it all the time, and Rock does too. Even before Zero decided he didn't want to change anything, Wily's virus was probably programmed not to risk it." It didn't need to appear inside program code, the domain of robot masters, if it could control it from outside somehow.

"Nanite-only, then? I thought you weren't compatible."

"Right, not compatible. I don't think it works that way for us." They probably were incompatible in the way X was nanite-compatible. "I think you had such a tough time with your virus because it's magic." Not just because reploids weren't robot masters, and were therefore even less equipped to deal with viruses than humans were. Reploids were copies of X's baseline design minus all the beta testing he did, while humans had lots and lots of beta testing under their species' belt.

"…Sufficiently advanced technology," he translated. "Something that looks like magic, like it's something that doesn't follow any scientific rules or principles because we don't recognize what we're looking at, so we don't know the principles that govern it."

Roll grinned. "Sorry for insulting you by not figuring that out before. I mean, _that _many decades? You would have figured it out _ages_ ago, unless it was something from out of left field, something that wasn't playing by the normal rules. Even if you're not robot masters, there are only so many ways programming viruses can work, and you probably figured out the rules of nanite viruses, too."

"But if it was only pretending to be those things, if it was exploiting another system vulnerability all along…"

"You can't block what you don't know about," Roll agreed. "That's Dr. Wily all over; he likes laughing at people who make assumptions, like 'it has to be an energy tank because what else could it be' and 'teleportation is impossible.'"

"Like time travel." X grinned up at her. "The sound that precedes scientific discovery isn't Eureka."

That wasn't quite how she'd heard the quote; but even though it was attributed to Asimov, there didn't seem to be any reliable sources and it probably got even more distorted between now and whenever X heard it. Even though Dr. Light used to like Asimov, others viewing the Three Laws as a _solution _instead of a thought experiment pointing out the problems with the concept had rather ruined it for him. "It's 'Huh, that's funny…'"

* * *

_Compared to Classic, X series is relatively hard SF. In my 'verses, they think that the stories about aliens and time travel are Dr. Wily lies: remember that one game with the fake flying saucer? They probably think that Quint and Duo were just more Wilybots, etc. _

_And then X5 and Zero coming back to life, and you have to wonder if at least the Hunter high command who were cleared for this were going 'Holy $%*$%^, are we in a cosmic horror story?' _

_Cyber-elves… Their capabilities explain why the world was having such a hard time doing anything about the Maverick Virus. In one of my fics, at first they think it's program code, a regular computer virus, then they find out it's spreading through nanites, and there are things that can be done about both of those vectors_. _But the virus has a third trick up its sleeve, and put yourself in the mindset of someone from a harder science fiction setting (except teleportation) and then look at cyber-elves and their capabilities. _

_Reverse engineer Zero, and you get a floaty glowy thing with what amounts to _magical powers? _The maverick virus is being spread by effing _fairies? _Are you kidding me? What sane person would guess that something that ludicrous is the reason the virus gets around all their countermeasures?_

_Effing mad scientists… _

_Someone needs to fic Dr. Ciel's ancestress and Weil, the people that were studying Zero and figured out the cure, trying to examine his physical systems, and then what they needed wasn't in the _physical _systems, and then… just all the stages of epic, epic, What Even Is This WTFery. Even knowing that the Nightmares were a thing that happened. _

_If you're wondering why this chapter didn't address X's reaction to Zero killing his younger self, wait for it._


	10. Still Alive

_I'm sorry for the delay: my sleep schedule has killed my ability to notice errors and copy-edit, so Haruna Rei was kind enough to offer to beta for me, and then her glasses self-destructed with hateful vengeance. I've tried to edit it myself, of course, but my apologies for the sentence structure and things I didn't catch. They'll be fixed after her new glasses arrive._

_This fic has foiled my second attempt to get it to wrap up nicely: this time it's because I made the mistake of underestimating Dr. Wily. Even if I scrap a couple chapters, there's just no one who could reasonably get into position to prevent a certain event. _

_I'm not following my usual gameverse headcanon here: I like the idea that Blues is the sadbot from the manga, making Rock 001 and Blues 000 since Rock was the first purpose-built robot master and Blues was an earlier unit retrofitted to robot master level, and then upgraded further by Dr. Wily because Dr. Wily hates stupid people. I think he keeps tossing IQ upgrades at his robot masters in hopes that someday they'll use them, but they're all less than five years old and there's only so much raw IQ can do. He was probably also hoping that more intelligence would cure the suicidal, since dying is stupid and his kids really shouldn't go and die. _

_Yes, Blues is maverick. However, he was also a stardroid before, and while he may have gone around dismembering his younger siblings, and inciting Forte to blow up several city blocks, and massacring Sniper Joes because their existence offended him, and threatening to shoot Kalin-Um. Yeah. Too much optimism would be a little bad here. _

_I _really _like the idea that Dr. Light's first and last creations were both built to develop wills of their own. _

* * *

"Hey there," he said, crouching down and ending up with a lapful of cat. He found himself smiling softly as he leaned forward, curling around Tango a little, strands of his black hair yielding to gravity. Tango was probably damaging his shirt, sitting in his lap and pawing at his chest, checking to see that he was real. He let the support unit initiate wireless contact, even though he should be worried about contaminating the little thing. Probably he was letting it happen because Tango was worried about him, but he couldn't be sure…

Tango must have gone home, and seen the helmet that Star Man found and Dr. Wily passed on to Dr. Light. It was a nice gesture up until the point that Dr. Wily found him and didn't tell Dr. Light. So his support unit was left to mourn, and wander out into the city to curl up in some of Blues' temporary camps and mope.

He'd thought that he was the one looking after Tango (how did a green robot cat end up on the _continent?) _when it was the support unit that was looking after him, all along. Now that he was checking logs, he found Dr. Light thinking aloud while petting Tango, because he needed someone to tell and he couldn't burden Rock like that. Didn't want him to know that the unit that kept attacking him and his other siblings was his own brother.

Tango was so glad he was alive, and that was nice on more than one level now, but maybe he should have seen if he could get any information out of the piece of Ra Moon that was hanging around Mega Man. Soaking up the energy it gave off must have restarted the crystal in place of his heart, according to Dr. Wily's theories about Ra Moon and his notes on what Terra said in the files Blues hacked while playing still-booting-up. He'd drained all the energy it was using to hang around and control Mega Man, but if he was able to put up with seeing that even a little longer, he could have gotten a little more.

Since he'd been upgraded from a robot to a robot master, it was reassuring to have a support unit, even if he didn't have dozens of robots like most of them did. It was also a relief that Tango was still alive, after what Terra did to the poor thing when he sensed the defective stardroid and Tango tried to help him. Even though he was hooked into the cat's wireless, it was still a relief to feel that head pressing up under his chin. He moved his arms to be a more secure platform for the unit, and called up the familiar patterns of his coat and scarf, flung over his shoulders instead of with his arms through the sleeves so it wouldn't be so obvious the cat was robotic.

He'd used his scarf to bind up Tango, after Terra shot the poor cat. He could try to find what was left of it later, but it was so shredded he would have had to try to find a new one if he hadn't been reactivated with these capabilities.

After editing matter into existence he was dangerously low on energy, and it wasn't the Third Law trying to force him to do something about that. He wasn't registering that he was low on energy: instead he was casting about for energy sources, and _feeling _as though he should take them. That they were there for the taking, instead of there because people had their own souls, had made their own choices about what they wanted to feel, what they wanted to do.

Feelings were his purpose: he could tell when there was something that different about his own. A survival instinct was not something he should have. Robot masters were supposed to _learn _why love was important, learn to love life, their own lives and those of other people, and choose to act to continue to live, so they could choose to act to allow others to live their lives as well. A heedless drive, that forced people to have certain impulses independent of their souls' wishes: that was as counter to his creators' wishes as the Three Laws.

He was certain that Tango wouldn't mind Blues using him as a generator, as long as it stayed passive. When the little unit risked their life to bring Blues an e-can while injured, they would be glad that they were helping Blues continue functioning just by being here, just by wanting him to live. He wasn't going to force Tango to produce energy, the way Terra tried to squeeze despair out of the world.

Still, he thought, heading for the warehouse's side door, he was supposed to live by his own will. Develop his own preferences, realize on his own what he wanted to protect.

With Tango, there were enough people living in the city that he could meet baseline energy requirements passively, he calculated. He didn't mind peoplewatching, although now, it might be better to stick close to the screaming arguments instead of finding somewhere else to be. If he needed more energy, say for editing the files that compromised his buster arm from 'damaged' to 'intact,' then well, he'd better hope he'd hit something when he fired.

He smirked: his reputation might come in handy there. After the incident with the Copy, everyone knew he was terrifying.

It was disturbing how easily he was adjusting to this idea, but then, he'd made major transitions twice before. The first time when he was granted full sapience and a humanoid body, but imprisoned by the laws, and the second when Dr. Wily woke him up and announced that he didn't _care _if Blues didn't particularly want to live, he was getting a new lease on life like it or not. Shortly thereafter, he'd gone independent, and had to work out how to acquire all those new survival necessities, things his old body hadn't needed. Like clothing.

Reality editing meant he wouldn't have parts requirements anymore. Not as long as he had the energy, and any sentient being could provide that. They didn't even have to be fully sapient: look at Tango.

The urgent thing now was finding out what he'd missed while he was drifting around in space. Going over the data he'd gotten from Wily's systems. What exactly Dr. Wily had done when he'd built that unit based on Sunstar, with more than a few touches of Ra Moon's capabilities. Reducing a planet to an asteroid belt? Eh, there were hundreds of ways to render Earth lifeless. _Controlling _an entire planet, what they heard and saw, though? Tapping into their minds, uploading data to them?

Now _that _had potential. He could almost hear Albert saying those very words. A channel that could upload video files: could it upload mind-viruses?

Terra only used it to try to show people the truth of what was going on, but that was thinking too small. Why not generate nightmares to inflict on a target world? Or were the stardroids simply too powerful for their progenitors, with no need to bother with anything but crude techniques? Were they war machines instead of Dr. Light's system managers? Built to kill instead of to guide and direct. Rock's direct approach, using personal power and violence to accomplish his wishes was… unusual. Not what Dr. Light wished for, even though Blues was sure that he didn't see his nightmares when he looked at Rock. No, it was Dr. Cossack who feared that robots would be used as weapons of war. Dr. Light feared a world where robots would crush people underfoot and not have the capacity to notice or care.

Or, even more nightmarish, _not be able to stop themselves from following orders _even if they did realize that they were hurting people and that was wrong.

Mega Man cared. Mega Man fought to protect, had _chosen _to fight to protect his family, the people he'd learned to care about. He fought for everyone's futures. That was why he was a hero.

Terra hadn't used Ra Moon's powers to their full potential for whatever reason, but it would be simple for Dr. Wily to figure out some of Ra Moon's true capabilities from what the world observed. If Ra Moon was even a separate entity, instead of a mass of the energy that animated all the stardroids. If that was the case, then the energy cloud Blues tapped had been just as much this 'Zero' as the portion of that energy being animating the android body Dr. Wily built it as a host. It was obvious why he'd picked an android host body instead of a robot master: android self-repair capability would cover use of reality editing for self-repair, and who would suspect an android of hooking into systems and controlling other units? X was supposed to be incapable of that, so he'd experience the world closer to how humans did, end up with a psychology closer to theirs instead of that of a hive species.

Humans looked after themselves: robot masters came into the world knowing that there were little lives that needed them. "You tricked me," he accused Tango, tapping the cat on the nose. They were on the sidewalk now, almost into the shopping district, so better confine his musings to wireless. _"Into looking after you." _Into staying alive_. "Just like Rock and Dr. Light… Or no, that's very Albert, isn't it. He set it up so they would crash into the asteroid, but he told Dr. Light that he'd see him when he got back to Earth. He knew that I'd stay to make sure that they were alright."_ At the time, he'd told himself that it was the First Law forcing him, but he'd _wanted _to just shut down. Standing there and letting Dr. Light die would have gotten him what he wanted… if it was truly what he wanted. His own will.

"_If Dr. Light hadn't sabotaged Gamma since he knew Albert wouldn't put up with the UN ordering him to build a robot-killer without some plan to take it over, Rock and I wouldn't have been able to take it, not and stay intact enough to protect Dr. Light from the security robots there and get the ship repaired and back to Earth. He can't have been expecting me to emerge from the teleporter, dismember the Third Numbers and get out of his base on my own."_ Not after damaging his buster saving the ship and then helping Rock with Gamma.

"_Realistically, should I have won that fight? True, most of them were taken down by friendly fire,"_ the Third Numbers did more damage to each other in that fight than he did to them, and they'd been hampered by the presence of Dr. Wily. Getting him out of there before one of his brothers accidently killed him took Shadow Man out of the fight, and he was the one who could have pursued Blues and brought him back before he repaired himself… before he recovered. _"The stardroids were combat units, I might have had subconscious access to their combat programming, but I didn't really have skill, not yet."_ He was decades older than the rest of them, but he'd only had a few weeks conscious in a humanoid body, and he was reactivated after the Third Numbers were turned on. _"I've never had luck. I already had fusion operation and teleportation programming: was I using alteration to make sure they missed, even without being aware of it?"_

The capabilities of Terra and the other stardroids… _"I don't think the species that build Asteroid Omega had a Dr. Light or Dr. Wily,"_ he realized. _"Terra and the others… If they didn't have their own wills, then they couldn't have used Ra Moon's powers to their full extent. But all of us except Rock and a handful of others constantly operate fusion reactors, and even he teleports. Quantum observation is… yes, rather like breathing: it's an automatic, background process, but we can take conscious control over it. Every single robot master could use this reality editing capability, if it was installed into them." _Blues must have used it without even being aware of it, since it never showed up on the level of his program code. "_Elec Man would be especially dangerous, since he manages large-scale energy generation… _invocation _on several continents simultaneously now. On the other hand, if the stardroids had their own wills, then they could have fought the influence of the crystals. Maybe that species wouldn't be extinct if they'd given their robots the ability to realize when an order was wrong and the right to refuse to follow it."_ The things Dr. Light believed were necessities. _"If the stardroids arrived after the WRO had its way…" _He hit up the WRO's robot master registry: how bad were the casualties from fighting the stardroids? What was the rate of robot master construction over the past… "What?!" he demanded, aloud and enraged.

Stopping suddenly meant someone bumped into him: he was too angry to even respond to their automatic "Excuse me."

"_Mandatory _retirement?!" Thank goodness Dr. Wily stopped it, or else… All the goodwill Dr. Light hoped for would have been ruined. Rock would have been forced to watch humans murder his younger siblings, and after the first Destruction Order? He'd raced there to save them, according to the reports of the Second Numbers, that was clear. Rock would _not _have left tamely, not when people were going to die.

If _all _of Dr. Light's children were executed for turning against humans on the day scheduled, the day that would have come if Dr. Wily hadn't struck first? Of course Roll wouldn't have escaped that fate, not when she had so much coding in common with the others, not when the rest of Dr. Light's children were labeled defective, and he'd registered his objections to the Three Laws. They would have accused him of not installing them properly, of aiding and abetting Dr. Wily somehow…

He had _not _gotten this angry before Dr. Wily rebuilt him with the crystal. His default was sadness, not anger. He was _named _for that melancholy, for the music he loved that expressed it.

Blues couldn't remember getting this angry since he was rebuilt as a warbot either. He'd just felt tired, all the time. Tired and sharp-edged, like the jagged edges of the broken crystal. Had the crystal drained away the emotions he would have felt otherwise, to power keeping him alive? Draining his soul in order to sustain his life, the life he hadn't wanted.

Except… except Rock needed him, and Forte felt so much he couldn't control it, not yet, and Blues had something he wanted to protect.

The Destruction Order this time… it was so transparent. If it was due to actual concern about _robots _becoming erratic and dangerous as they got older, even though that was _ridiculous _when making sure that robots stayed in good shape was one of the things robot masters were _for_, then they should have targeted units like Tango. People's pet robots. No, it was nothing but an excuse to reduce the number of robot masters, remove the ones that humans had grown attached to, the ones that might have learned enough of the world to start caring about humans the way Dr. Light wished, but, in the eyes of these people, the 'other' was always going to be the enemy, and knowledge was power. Humans that would help robots were humans that would help 'the enemy.'

They'd come _this close _to destroying all of Dr. Light's dreams, even if the repeal of the first Destruction Order meant the original eight were grandfathered in? A masterful stroke, that, because the voters would have been outraged over Mega Man's death, and this way their enemies could set the precedent, could make people feel that Mega Man was _special_, and so it was alright that all _other _robot masters were murdered…

He couldn't have helped if he was here. He might even be a poster boy for those people, if they knew he predated the Third Numbers. All the robot masters knew he was powerful and dangerously erratic: if they knew he was a _Lightbot… _

If those people weren't racist hypocrites that didn't want to pick a fight with companies that wouldn't have wanted to replace their old, non-sentient units, then Tango might be _dead_.

He had to stop walking for a moment, and he heard Tango's worried mew. The support unit knew what it looked like, when Blues had to focus all of his attention on diagnostics. The feeling in his chest wasn't pain, not like when the White Giant drew closer to the planet, not like when he met Terra, when the powerful alien radiating cruelty said he was one of them. Broken, a failure, but that wasn't news.

He should be in pain right now: he knew these symptoms. The difference between now and before was that he had Dr. Wily's energy virus in addition to the crystal: so it was regulating the crystal to some extent?

That was good to know, and he wasn't going to complain about not having to periodically shut down his pain sensors. Having them off was a good way to develop some problem and not find out about it until he was dead.

Right, of course Dr. Wily wouldn't want his creations to end up like the stardroids. He still hated having additional outside programming in his systems, but if it countered the crystal's attempts to influence him? The virus might even be the reason he was aware of this drive to get energy now. If you didn't know about something, then you couldn't control it.

What would Zero… what would Zero _feel _like, when he wasn't hovering around Rock?

He'd avoided socializing with people for years, except for Tango: the very fact he _wanted _to meet one more Wilybot, much less a stardroid, was obviously a red flag. Honestly, possessing Mega Man like that was technically impressive, but it was Dr. Wily's work, not his own, and it said terrible things about his character. Someone who risked the lives of robots like that, without even bothering to understand their programming and the Three Laws?

This Zero was _not _the center of the universe.

He didn't like what he was finding in his systems. He needed to do some survey, figure out how much of the difference was due to the virus and how much was from the crystal, were only things that seemed like changes because he was only becoming aware of them now. He headed into an alley, getting out of sight long enough to teleport up to one of his favorite roofs. Thank goodness it was still there: he realized only after he'd already arrived that it could have been destroyed by the stardroids, or Forte, or urban renewal, in the time he was gone. No, he wasn't thinking clearly, he knew, putting Tango down and removing his coat from his shoulders.

At least the roof was still here and it still had that cold breeze.

He needed to try to get at the coding of this thing. This couldn't just be the trap embodied in the crystals: they turned intelligent robots into berserkers, there wasn't any _subtlety _there. Not to mention that it had overwritten his eyes red, and that was Dr. Wily's color.

Wonderful. He had _Dr. Wily's _programming trying to tamper with his emotions, when he and Dr. Light were the ones who worked on that learning system to begin with. One of the two people who understood best that robots had real feelings also understood _why _they felt certain things. Since Ra Moon could control what people perceived, then of _course _Dr. Wily's virus wouldn't do something as obvious as trying to control his emotions, it would control the data he was looking at and having emotions about. Try to convince him to feel the way Dr. Wily thought they all should feel, especially about the humans that used them.

So: he couldn't trust his emotional reactions. He couldn't trust what he was seeing. He'd have to remember what _he _wanted, and be on guard against what he observed changing that.

Low on water. He could fix that, and generating water seemed like a harmless way to practice with these new abilities, but now his energy reserves were low. Tango was already peering about: the cat knew this place, so he must be trying to figure out where the nearest store was that he could shoplift an e-can from. Blues patted him on the head. "It's alright, I'll take care of this." Even though he appreciated everything Tango had done, to keep him alive. Make him keep himself alive. He needed to do this himself, to get some data on how to meet his energy requirements.

…Terrifying humans was horrible publicity for robot masters (although they didn't have to know he was one), and also _cruel_. He should _not _be thinking of terrifying, no, of attacking them, as the default way to refuel.

Nope, Dr. Wily certainly hadn't even tried to override all of the stardroid defaults. Not when he kept losing because robot masters found hurting others so counterproductive.

…And now he found himself wondering if he'd held that buster to Kalinka Cossack's head that day because it was the optimum way to keep her and everyone else safe, because he was feeling self-destructive and felt like tempting the First and Second Laws, or because her shock and betrayal, the way everyone stared at him in horror…

No, he was _not _going to apologize. He didn't like explaining himself and the last thing he should want to do was socialize, get access to the Cossackbot network when he was _carrying an energy virus_. He'd already infected Tango. No. The Cossacks had lost enough to the wars. He was not going to let it use him like this. He was going to _not _start a panic, but wander around and passively refuel, and then he was going to get back to trying to hack into what had to be a two-way data link between his systems and the energy virus. If this thing's programming _couldn't even control its own avatar_, then he wasn't going to let it control his soul, any more than he'd let the Three Laws rule him.


	11. Second Opinion

_In theory, I am well aware that the fic has too much talking. However, I _like _the talking, and seeing characters interact, and fun worldbuilding and such, so I'm going to keep doing fanservice-for-me, or rather author appeal._

_If it helps, there will be a final boss._

* * *

The rider took off her helmet, revealing blonde hair about half as long as Zero's. Still wearing a heavy coat, she dismounted from the snowmobile.

"Kalinka Cossack?" Zero asked, glad he wasn't wearing armor.

She nodded, not coming any closer, which seemed eminently sensible to him. He and Axl had stopped sparring when the snowmobile crossed the border of their property, because Axl was using rapid-fire energy bullets with a decent range and it would only take one. The shots were low-powered, because 20XX weapons generally were by 21XX standards and X didn't want them to kill too much of their tree cover, but humans were squishy. Also, X borrowed Auto's lab to put these together since even with his dislike of people getting shot the veteran didn't want Axl unarmed, and his first priority had been building something that was unlikely to blow up in Axl's hands even though X was working with unfamiliar parts. He'd also built a pair each for himself and Zero, so Zero could demonstrate for Axl and the two of them had weapons that were built in this century and weren't obviously Lighttech.

Axl didn't have any default, built-in weapons: he was supposed to copy enemies, or other Wilybots presumably, and use theirs, but that just went to show, Zero thought, that Wily _had no idea how combat training worked_. Axl needed to get _something _down, for self-defense, and _then _he could work on expanding his range of weapons. What kind of idiot expected a newbuilt to instantly master fighting not just with a variety of weapons with different specs that changed how Axl would have to use them if he wanted to win, but with a variety of _body types_? That completely changed what Axl would have to do to avoid getting hit? Sure, Axl might have pre-programmed dodge routines, but if he didn't understand the mechanics of it, how and why certain things worked for his body, then how was he supposed to adapt them for entirely different bodies? Not just height and weight, but center of balance, different articulation, dash boots or no dash boots…

No, Axl's copy chip meant that until he learned how to learn, he was useless against anyone who saw him coming. No wonder he had such an uphill battle trying to get Red Alert to allow him out on field missions: the Repliforce veteran was old enough to think outside the box, otherwise he wouldn't have disobeyed General's orders and left Repliforce before the end, and he must have recognized that Axl needed more training than the standard newbuilt.

Of course Axl would have whined and complained about that, when his friends were out there and he was training instead of _helping them_, but since no one was getting hurt at the moment, this Axl took to training much more happily than their Axl. This Axl was duly impressed by Zero's tricks and wanted to learn them, while their Axl, although he admired Zero, had a tendency to go "Yeah, that's great, but _why am I not in the field when my friends are getting shot at?!" _Fortunately, Zero had cured him of saying anything like "The only _real _training is field testing," in front of impressionable newbuilts before it got any of them killed_. Axl _was immune: they weren't.

If they were back in 21XX, Zero could probably build a functional pair of energy pistols, come to think of it. He'd trained with every weapon he could get his hands on, so he would know their capabilities and limitations if an enemy tried to use them against him. Disassembly for cleaning and field repairs were part of weapons training, so he knew the general part types and how you hooked different varieties of them up in different combinations to produce different specs. Knowing that meant testing out a captured enemy weapon gave him a lot of tactically valuable information.

X was the one with formal training as an engineer, though. In addition, the Elite Seventeenth was a heavy artillery unit, since X would rather the mavericks didn't get anywhere close to the reploids he was looking after. Especially since once a war started, he wouldn't be there to look after them. That meant X spent a lot of time training his newbuilts in the use and field repair of various things that hopefully made other people go boom. The Shinobi unit, on the other hand... Zero's recruits were either promoted into it after surviving a certain amount of time without death or infection in another unit, or purpose-built and trained before coming into the Hunters. If they didn't already know how to take proper care of their weapons, they weren't going to qualify for his training. It had been decades since he'd handled someone's training from scratch instead of having them come in thinking they knew what they were doing and having to be cured of their bad habits.

Even though both of them were unarmored, they were still armed Wilybots. Not an insignificant threat.

A background tactical process was calculating the speed and acceleration of that snowmobile, how fast she could probably get back on it and comparing it to what the presence of all this snow was doing to his top speed. Even Axl could easily shoot her, but she was staying out of easy grabbing range. When he corrected for the differences between an android's structure and a robot master's, she wasn't just out of _easy _grabbing range. Huh. Fairly impressive. He liked people who were good at not being killed.

Not good enough, and obviously she knew that, given the bit of tightness around her eyes. They could kill her easily, but capturing her, to use her against her family: that would take a little work, for someone who wasn't him.

"I'm here to speak to X, if he's free," she said, and Zero nodded.

"If you want to drive up to the house, you'll find him there," he told her, instead of offering to escort her. She would have to slow down so he could keep up with her without pushing it, and she'd probably feel safer talking to a potential Maverick – a Wilybot – with X there. It was only sensible.

"My GPS doesn't have the house's location on the property," she said, which made sense, given the place's defenses. A lot of people had privacy tech up these days, according to Roll when Zero asked if it would attract attention. It wasn't visible from where they stood, either: there were several little valleys, otherwise Zero wouldn't have wanted to risk practicing outside, even if Axl needed to learn to deal with terrain. "Would you mind showing me where it is?" she asked, and smiled, trying to have it reach her eyes.

…That seemed like a deliberate effort not to be mistrustful, to ignore her survival instincts, but then he thought about it, and compared her to Dr. Light.

Dr. Light didn't even seem worried when he was in the same room with Forte, forget Zero, although Forte was in Roll's custody at the time. He'd been kidnapped before too, but Kalinka was the one who had been around robot masters since she was a child. Why was she more wary than the old man?

Zero nodded. "Axl, go on ahead and tell X that Kalinka's here."

"Is that necessary?" she wondered, when the newbuilt ran off.

"We're not robot masters," he reminded her. "There isn't a network on the property. X and I have secure comms, but secure by 21XX standards isn't secure against Dr. Wily." The real reason was that in theory, one was less of a threat than two. They were numerically even now, and hopefully that would help her calm down her tactical. Her rational mind would know that even without Axl, Zero was still just as deadly, but it wasn't the problem.

"Or someone with a robot master of their own." Some robot master's _owner, _when X and Zero were hiding from the authorities. "Nothing's secure against Dr. Wily."

"I assume you wouldn't have come unless it was safe for us?" he asked her.

"I have a fondness for fast vehicles," she told him, getting back on the snowmobile and starting the engine. "I spend a lot of time riding various things, when I'm not helping my family." No one would care if she spent a few days driving around a national park, even if anyone was watching her movements.

"The engine doesn't sound the same as it did before," he remarked.

She nodded. "It's not traditional, but this is quieter."

Zero understood that: there were a lot of reploids who liked the noises their vehicles made. "Follow me, then. Or you could follow Axl's tracks." It would be awhile before Zero tried to teach him to move with stealth in the snow, even though Axl liked that kind of thing. Zero knew the limits of Axl's stealth capabilities when facing off against 21XX tech, but he needed to get a robot master involved in Axl's training, see what their capabilities did to the equation. Of course Axl's current abilities wouldn't be ineffective: Dr. Wily built him to go up against robot masters, at least in this timeline, but Axl had worked out quite a few new tricks in his time with the Shinobi Unit and Zero had no idea which ones would still be effective in 20XX. He wasn't going to teach his student something that would get him shot.

That meant the first priority was making sure that Axl could take care of himself if the enemy located him.

It didn't occur to Zero to ask himself 'what enemy?' There had always been conflict, someone had been Zero's enemy ever since his original activation. His experiences meant he saw war as the default state of the universe, and it would be odd if no one was trying to kill him or X in the same way it would be odd if water decided to flow uphill. The peace X sought to create was, if not quite a fairy tale to Zero, something entirely theoretical. A nice idea: not impossible, but if it was real, you wouldn't call it a dream.

Kalinka kept glancing at him, which he noted but didn't really think was odd until she apologized. "You remind me of someone," she said. "I wonder Dr. Wily built you in memory of him."

"Oh?" he asked her.

"Roll sent me images of you in armor. Red, grey and your hair, that yellow…" She shook her head. "Normally I have better manners than to stare at people. I could say 'my brothers are robot masters,' but that sounds too much like 'my best friend is a robot master' for comfort, even though Roll is my best friend."

She was talking about racism, Zero realized. "I'm a Wilybot." And odds were he'd killed more than the rest of them put together, although saying that wouldn't help her. "You've been kidnapped and held hostage by Wilybots twice, so if you're nervous around me, I'll attribute it to that." To purely reasonable caution and correctly functioning tactical systems.

She stared at him for a moment. "Did I say something wrong?" he asked her.

"No," she shook her head. "I'm glad that you didn't count Skull Man as a Wilybot, even though that man insisted on working on him." There seemed to be more to it than that, but Zero wasn't going to press her on it. Skull Man was a Cossackbot: had he kidnapped Kalinka? There wasn't anything like that in the Mega Man stories Zero knew about.

He kept trudging through the snow and trees for a bit, staying at least a meter from the snowmobile even though the track wasn't all that wide, since the trunks it meandered around were limiting factors. Nature. He'd prefer to leave it, but X had taken him for a walk last night, far enough away from the house that there was no mechanical noise, and it was so _quiet_. With all the snow around, it would have been impossible for anyone to sneak up on them: it was a clear night too, so cloud cover wasn't a problem.

When X sighed, and said, "Isn't it peaceful," looking up at the stars, though, Zero ended up with the impression that X expected him to agree, but for reasons other than the tactical ones, given that X sighed again after Zero hit the high points, and this time it was with familiar, fond irritation (Zero being Zero, meaning all of his partner's systems were operating normally even if what was normal for Zero wasn't normal by anyone else's standards) instead of relaxation.

It wasn't that he minded quiet, unless it was the 'something's missing' variety that gave away an ambush, so he was glad that Kalinka didn't talk to him again until they arrived at the house.

X offered her something to drink after she hung up her helmet and coat and got the snow off her boots. "Roll said that you wanted to talk to me?" she asked him.

"Is there anything you can tell me about Duo?" he asked, showing her a seat and then sitting down himself. Without armor, he looked younger than she did, although there was something similar about their eyes.

"My father is the one that worked on him… but that's why you're asking me." Kalinka took a breath. "I shouldn't have installed the crystals into the others. It seemed mad, but so mad that I assumed he wouldn't have suggested something like that without a good reason. I recognized them from images of the one the team brought back before Wily stole it – my father built those robots, the ones that explored the asteroid. He does, we do, quite a lot of humanoid support unit-level robots for various applications, like Ring Man's Robot Police units."

X nodded. "Not fully sapient, but capable of some initiative. More initiative than one would assume, when they found themselves dealing with alien defense units and had to prioritize what to bring back."

She gave him a thin smile. "The Mother Computer project… Dr. Light isn't the only one who hasn't been able to retain ownership of his work, after refusing to license to the wrong people." The military-industrial complex had _wanted _robot masters, up until Dr. Wily made it very clear that trying to use robot masters or any kind of drone would be handing him a free army. The industrial side of it still wanted them, could still get away with making use of them up until it was bad enough to cross the line, and they still hoped that they could cross that line without Dr. Wily's robot masters finding out about it.

Zero wondered what she would think of X putting his original plans and the rest of his technology that they could figure out in the public domain, but it did set the precedent that the parts of a reploid's body weren't anyone's intellectual property, and so the reploid was no one's property but their own. Imagine if people were able to twist copyright law into some ownership of reploids containing parts they designed…

"I'd really like to talk to you and your father about the Robot Rights Movement from your perspective," When Dr. Cossack wrote a book that was still a major historical text when X woke up, "But if Dr. Cossack built the team that first encountered this kind of technology, then I understand why you didn't see the need to ask for details in the middle of an emergency."

"The crystals shouldn't have shorted them out like that. I barely had time to build a token interface, so I decided to build one that would break down if the crystal tried to shunt too much power into their bodies, and where the damage was located… They _weren't _interfacing with their power systems," she told X. "My brothers have surge protectors. There should _not _have been power surges in their processors."

"I believe you," X said. "In my era, there was practically an epidemic of things ending up in people's processors that really shouldn't have been able to get in there."

No, there was a literal epidemic of it, but Zero wasn't going to derail the conversation just because X had made a kind of a joke, trying to reassure Kalinka that he believed her.

"I believe it's the same principle," X told her. "And since my power generation is derived from those crystals, I'm a little concerned."

Meaning he wanted to know what she knew about Duo. "The crystals came from the White Giant's arm. I think it made my father lie so people wouldn't know that the crystals that made my brothers crazy came from it. It crashed into our transport, and my father had the body of one of the robots we sell teleported in. He attached the White Giant's arm to it, and set my voice as an authorized user."

"Authorized user?"

"That kind of robot usually goes to construction sites that don't need a robot master, just a unit to do the heavy lifting," she told him. "They're speech capable, but only a few phrases, like warning someone to get out of the way. The unit obeyed me, but… Its priorities were wrong. We set our robots to protect people, even other low-level robots, not just humans, and it wouldn't have protected Mega Man and the others if I hadn't ordered it to stop attacking and block that stardroid's attack instead. That was when I was certain, but…"

"You know enough about how these units act that you already knew something changed its personality."

The engineer nodded. "A completely different fundamental decision-making architecture. My father's greatest fear is robots being used for war. People using them as instruments of murder so they can pretend their own hands are clean, so they can do horrible things and quiet their consciences. Pretend that it's the robots that are evil, use that as an excuse to force children to murder children. A robot that prioritized destruction over saving people's lives… He could not have programmed such a thing. Not after what happened to Skull Man."

X hesitated, but since it was upsetting her, "May I…?"

"Ask?" She looked down at the coffee table, at her still-gloved hands. There was no bare skin except her face: a good habit, for someone that worked with robotics. Zero remembered when it was safe for there to be human doctors, or robotics engineers, in Hunter medical, even though X and Dr. Cain made an effort to have the reploid trainees get as much practice as possible.

Especially in a cold climate like this: bare human skin could stick to metal, couldn't it?

"He was completed after I was kidnapped. Dr. Wily ordered my father to build him like that, a robot child forced to fight for a _human _child. Fight another child robot, at that. After the war, Skull Man didn't have the Three Laws, my father didn't want to install them and rebuild his body as well. He didn't know what to do, and Skull Man looked like a Wilybot, and I… He… We failed him, as a family. Then we couldn't save Copy-Rock, either. The crystals drove my brothers berserk, they turned their weapons on…" The angry shake of her head moved her hair as well, reminded Zero of his own. "None of this, none of it, is anything my father would have done. Not to my brothers, especially not to a unit he'd just turned on." She scowled. "But I'm certain that Duo wasn't a new unit. That was the White Giant, just pretending to obey my orders."

"Why?" Zero asked her.

"I don't know, any more than I know why it made my father tell that lie, claim that he kept Dr. Wily's data. As though we want anything to do with Wily's programming, after what he did to turn my brothers into combat units." A moment of hesitation. "I think it wanted to see what I would do with that power." That just made her even angrier. As though she would let people be killed right in front of her! "But I'm not certain of it, not the way I'm certain that Duo wasn't our work." Not a Cossackbot. "I don't know what he is, I don't know how they think. Just like a robot master might not do something for the same reason a human would, even though in some things we're very alike."

"_I'm beginning to think I did something very stupid," _Zero sent to X. At this short range, it wouldn't be intercepted.

A simple "_?" _was the reply, while X said to Kalinka, "I'm still discovering the differences between robot masters and androids myself. I think a lot of it is that they network so easily, that they're rarely alone but can always reach out to the people around them to help and be helped. It's not that they're different just because they're different, but how they interact with the world and each other is different. People are shaped by their experiences, change how they approach the world based on what works and what doesn't, so two people who experience very different things are doing to develop in different ways."

"_I'd assumed that I was responsible for the Cataclysm because I'm a force of destruction, and what else was there that would possibly destroy your family and mine?" _Another Wilybot? Why would a Wilybot kill their own family? Zero wasn't a proper Wilybot: when he woke up, he was a rabid beast. "_I know more about finding out who's responsible for a maverick attack than _that_. Ignorance of the situation is not evidence." _Not knowing of anything else that could do it didn't mean the one thing he did know of was the answer, it didn't prove a damn thing.

"_Rubble_," X sent. "_Rubble, a second asteroid belt, in every timeline except the one where you were completed with your current design. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?" _

Since that was a rhetorical question, Zero saw no reason to tell X he agreed, not when the idea of him being any kind of savior was just wrong. Recognizing his silence as grudging agreement, or at least the temporary inability to make a good argument that X was wrong, X continued, "_There's the time machine. We could move forward to do recon, but there's still a lot of information out there that we can gather without the risk of bringing something back with us." _

That, Zero definitely agreed with. Especially since X was immune and Zero wasn't. He was _not _letting X go and face who-knew-what without him, but he'd been flooded with the virus before. He was _not _going to kill X and then come back and kill X's family.

Kalinka coughed politely. Zero was a little surprised she spotted it: the two of them had a lot of practice keeping private conversations private. Perhaps there was some tell that the reploids and humans of 21XX didn't recognize that someone who grew up with seven robot masters, who networked constantly instead of using coms occasionally, would recognize. He made a note of that, although he'd already noted not to even try to have a private com conversation around Roll.

"We were reviewing what the people of 21XX think about certain aspects of this era," X said. "It's looking like the general assumptions are wrong."

"The 'general assumptions' about robot masters always are," in her experience. "What you said about networking: it's very true. A robot master should not be alone, any more than a human should be. That's why my father wrote his book, about treating robot masters as family. At the time, I was a little, well, seven younger siblings?" If they were valued the same as her even though they weren't human, did that mean she was less than human to him, that she wasn't special to her only parent? "Robot masters… they look after their robots. Helping others is an 'Of _course_' to them, even if those others are objectively inferior. _More _so if they're weaker and less intelligent, since it means they need the help more. So… if humans don't see the robot masters they own as worth helping, worth caring about, that means that something must be very wrong with the robot master… or with that human. And if all the humans they know see them as things, then that's their sample of what humanity is like."

So a robot master in a bad situation? Of course they would start to think that all humans were like that, if every single solitary human they encountered was. That was what the evidence would show them. "Dr. Wily is a very cruel man," she continued, "but the position of robot masters would be much worse if it weren't for his pettiness. The abusive can't keep their robot masters, and the laws governing the treatment of robot masters we _do _have are almost all because of him or Mega Man." And Mega Man wouldn't be a hero if he didn't need to stop .

"I read your father's book years ago," soon after he was released from the capsule, "but…"

"Are you done yet?" Axl yelled from upstairs.

"Should I get him outside again?" Zero asked X.

"It's up to you," X told him.

Zero shrugged: X would tell him any important information he missed later, and Kalinka might speak more freely without a Wilybot standing right there. She probably thought he cared about his family, and wouldn't want to say anything too bad about them in front of him, even if it was true.

They _needed _to know the bad things she had to say about Zero's creator. Both Rock and Dr. Light considered Dr. Wily a very dangerous person, but Rock was like X, and Dr. Light was an old friend of his. They were both the kind of people who gave the benefit of the doubt, even though they'd acknowledged long ago that Dr. Wily wasn't going to reform and they needed to treat him as a clear and present danger. His children, though, weren't necessarily enemies, no matter who built them.

Then there was the fact that Zero was X's friend, and that meant Rock and Dr. Light didn't want Zero to kill himself. Of _course _they were going to slant what they said with that in mind: Zero knew how X was about people dying, and they were where he'd gotten it from, apparently. So, anything about Dr. Wily's possible intentions for Zero, the implications of Zero's abilities that might leap out at 20XX's AI specialists, unlike X who had spent his entire life working with reploid-based technology? They _needed _a scientist who hated Dr. Wily like a normal person on the one hand, but could be trusted not to reveal X's existence and get Dr. Light's family in trouble on the other. Sure, that was also a bias, but two biased for and one against was better than only having the two biased for.

Kalinka might not have made it into the history books other than as Dr. Cossack's daughter, but given her age, she might just have died before she got a chance to stand out. Trying to compete with Drs. Light and Wily? Dr. Cossack was only remembered because of the Fourth War and his book. Even if she wasn't a genius, they still needed her. They needed someone with the familiarity with 20XX technology and concepts that X lacked.

Roll would have been ideal, since her opinion of Dr. Wily was that everyone would be saved a lot of trouble if someone hit him over the head and repeated as necessary to keep him unconscious, but Roll wasn't immune.

"Dr. Light and Rock are studying Zero," X said once Zero had gone upstairs. He wouldn't be coming down this way: there was another staircase in what probably used to be servants' quarters.

She nodded. "Roll is keeping me informed."

"Ah, you said that you and Roll were friends?"

"We competed in the-Well, she competed in Battle and Chase, we built the car she drove together. Bright Man and I were going to be her pit crew, but then Dr. Wily attacked the race, and the two of us had allowed my father to get the impression that Dr. Light gave Roll permission to complete," Kalinka said, not even bothering to pretend that was in any way accidental. "Ring Man found out and locked down our transport before we reached Hawaii, and Bright Man wouldn't help me get control back." And a human, even a roboticist, trying to regain control over a computer-controlled vehicle after it was taken by a robot master?

"Well, once the race turned into a battle…"

"It was always going to turn into a battle, that was why Roll wanted to compete, and _she didn't have armor_. If Dr. Light upgraded her into a warbot, then…" Long story and nasty legal situation, that was X's guess when Kalinka shook her head, lips tight and eyes dark. He could see that Kalinka hadn't appreciated Ring Man keeping her away when Roll might end up needing urgent medical attention. "That fake Mega Man shot her and nearly killed her in the last war before the race. Battle and Chase was only a few months after the tournament, just in time for Dr. Wily to be ready for another war: the WRO is tasteless like that. We couldn't just build Roll external armor, she would have to be completely rebuilt to be a warbot. Rock was built to be able to survive lab explosions: they've had to redesign a few things and put in replacements more frequently than expected because of the wear, but his body can handle the weight of the armor provided he doesn't overstress anything. Roll has much better articulation and dexterity than he does, that's why she can do labwork just as well as Rock without the Variable Tool System."

X was nodding. "Too many potential failure points, if she's suddenly carrying a hundred additional kilograms. They'd have to rip out and redo her entire endoskeletal structure, and she'd lose so much performance it wouldn't be worth it." Waving at himself, he said, "I can have this kind of articulation and carry armor because the nanites compensate for wear, but it sounds like she's built like Zero, without the nanites. This was a problem for reploids, too: that's why so many of the members of the Shinobi unit were custom units, different engineers trying to figure out how to min-max the problem of close-range specialists."

Her eyes lit up. "Because nanites require a pseudo-circulatory system, and that adds another set of design constraints."

Oh, of course she and Roll had already discussed this as an option, X realized. Roll wouldn't even have needed to tell Kalinka about him. "She already has a lot of functions and subsystems: without building her into a larger frame," X didn't have any ideas. "Alia made a lot of advances, but I'm not sure how many of them are applicable to robot masters."

Oh? She motioned for him to go on.

"Over time, a lot of people have experimented a lot with reploid design. Signas, the son of a friend of mine, is structurally closest to a robot master, although of course he has nanites. His articulation is, well, I wouldn't recommend borrowing any of that design for Roll. He wouldn't have put up with those limitations if we didn't need him. Alia was taller than Roll: she started out with a non-combat structure but with the circulatory system in place of Roll's master system. In our time, networking was limited since we were trying to stop the spread of the virus." Just because it didn't _need _to spread that way didn't mean it _couldn't_. "I don't have plans for robot masters in my databanks, so I don't really know much yet about how they're put together, but is a taller body an option?" Since that would alleviate the space constraints.

Kalinka shook her head. "How aware are you of the Light family's position?"

"Not as aware as I'd like to be."

"Mega Man was not even offered the position of head of the robot police. Not that Ring Man was asked: he was transferred by the municipal police force my father wanted him to join to the WRO's new, international organization. The official reason is that Ring Man is not a warbot: he was built to capture, not injure. The unofficial reason is that no one is very happy with the fact that conventional forces are at a massive disadvantage against robot masters: the more technology they use, the more helpless they are, meaning that militaries that didn't have the money to modernize potentially have a massive advantage against the forces of the developed world, if they could force robot masters without the first law to work for them.

"They ordered Dr. Light to build Gamma, a robot able to fight robots, and even let Dr. Wily out for that purpose, because they wanted such a thing. They wanted it very, very much, to the point the power crystals were secondary. Otherwise, they would have launched another mission to retrieve them. The WRO sponsored that gladiatorial game because they want more warbots: Dr. Wily made it very clear that he will tolerate no warbots other than his own and Mega Man. The creation of his friend from his university days. Dr. Light has been imprisoned by the government three times now, because they suspected him of things that were Dr. Wily's doing. In the eyes of some, the fact they were Dr. Wily's doing doesn't necessarily mean that Dr. Light is innocent, either. If Roll became a warbot? Even the ability to defend herself: many will look at that and assume she, that Dr. Light, wants those capabilities for the sake of offense. Rebuilding her, making her look obviously different for the sake of being combat-capable?"

"Would put her family in danger." The same way X's very existence did, in a world where they tried to kill robots because it might be possible for them to say no. "What about yours?"

"We have some more trust because we've suffered at the hands of Dr. Wily. None of Dr. Light's creations are dead." Not like her brother, and wasn't that suspicious? "They would rather a unit like Ring Man was under the control of someone who wasn't a robot rights activist, but at the moment, they have no alternatives. Dr. Wily's arrogance sees to that: he hates competition, people seeing someone else as a genius and ignoring him."

"If Dr. Light owns the only unit that can protect them from Dr. Wily, some would see that as a source of power. So they want an alternative, like Repliforce." At least no one could claim that the Mavericks were leaving the Maverick Hunters alone, that they had some secret treaty or were even working together. "In my time, there were mercenary units that people could hire if they were afraid that the Hunters might not be able to assist them." Might not have the resources in the face of widespread attacks, might not get there in time. "They tended not to survive very long, with a handful of exceptions." Axl's stepfather was _very_ old for a reploid when the virus finally got him. "No one except your father has managed to build a," no, not a warbot, that was important to the Cossacks, "robot capable of subduing other robots that is personally loyal to him and refuses to join Dr. Wily?" Or at least Ring Man had rejoined Dr. Cossack once freed by Mega Man?

"The eight finalists from the tournament were traumatized by Copy Mega Man. They might not want to join Dr. Wily, but they don't want to fight, either. Even the ones that were obviously purpose-built warbots were covered as civilian units, because warbots are illegal. They were returned to their supposedly-civilian work in order to keep the cover of those projects intact. Since they know their builders put them in that danger, and now see them as failures, why should they fight for them? They did fight during the stardroid incident, but that was to protect co-workers, friends they had made, and the kind of people who want warbots see that as merely the First Law in action, and thus useless for their purposes. Forte… the implications of Forte worry them. How do they get a warbot without the First Law to kill only enemy humans? Forte ruins Dr. Wily's plans far more often than he does anything helpful."

Convincing people that building robot masters to try to force them to kill was a bad idea sounded very helpful to X. His goals weren't Dr. Wily's, but if Dr. Wily was trying to discourage others from building warbots to compete with his own designs… "How do you get anyone with free will to want to help you?" X asked, and for him it was an entirely rhetorical question. Help them. Be worth helping.

"Speaking of uncontrollable people…" She looked around.

Who was she looking for? She knew that Zero and Axl had gone back outside: Ah, they had another houseguest. "Lumine has a Wilybot e-mail account, and Shade Man sent him a link to a video game called Minecraft. He wants Lumine to build him a space elevator, since he heard on the grapevine that the Lumine of our time built one." Lumine had taken that as a personal challenge, not wanting to be outdone by another of himself, and was up in his room taking online crash courses in engineering, materials science and something called the Kerbal Space Program.

X wasn't going to complain: this was a much better hobby than world domination.

"Shade Man is the one who figured out how to get Ring Man and the others into orbit to fight the stardroids and Ra Moon," Kalinka said. "Star Man still manages their satellites, but since Shade Man took over their aerospace program, I'm sure they're doing more spying with them."

"Zero met him: he got the impression that Shade Man was more concerned about the stardroids than anything else, and wasn't likely to… No?" X asked when Kalinka started shaking her head.

"No," she said bluntly. "He and Shadow are Dr. Wily's enforcers. Oh, most people believe that the Second Numbers are his enforcers, but they only rescue robot masters, they have nothing to do with the wars. They helped when Wily Island was attacked by the White Giant, but they have their own bases, somewhere, and build their own robots. They have organized themselves, they're not under Wily's command. Most of the Third Numbers went to live on their own for awhile after I was kidnapped and my family was forced to fight, although that wasn't because they objected to my kidnapping but because Dr. Wily wasn't providing them with upkeep and wanted them to support themselves. They moved back to Wily Island once it was built. Shadow remained with Dr. Wily the entire time: he kidnapped me and supervised Copy-Rock. The Fifth Numbers were built to be self-sufficient from the beginning: they too will not be overly inconvenienced by his death. Except for the fact that I'm sure people will want them brought under control once they no longer have Dr. Wily's protection. The Seventh Numbers, of which Shade Man is one, are some of the rescued robot masters: they volunteered to help Dr. Wily during his plans for Battle and Chase. One of them hated Mega Man so much, because he fought for the humans, that when he thought he was about to die he tried to kill Roll and Ice Man."

X's eyebrows rose at that: that was _very _different from what he was learning about 20XX's normal. It was more like what he was used to, sadly.

"Shade Man told Rock that there was a bomb under Roll's car, and that if he didn't win Battle and Chase it would be set off. It's a rare robot master that doesn't mind having innocents in danger: even Shadow Man helped Roll, when she and Ice Man were attacked by the Gilliam Knights – attack non-sentient robots that Wily deployed in a populated area, not under a robot master's control," she explained. "The Third Numbers kept me prisoner, but I think that when they scared me, they thought it was funny because it was ridiculous of me to be scared, and if I thought so poorly of robot masters then I deserved to suffer a little for it." Since she was the daughter of a roboticist, and they thought Dr. Wily's understanding of robots was normal, or how humans should be at any rate. So she should have known better. "I was in danger because of Dr. Wily, not because of what they might have done to me on their own initiative. Shade Man hasn't been involved in any violence since then, but a lot of politicians have been having their files leak and other such things. They're claiming that Dr. Wily fabricated them, of course, even though he says he doesn't know or care what they're talking about, but Ring Man is certain that Shade Man is behind it, and Shadow is helping him infiltrate and get the physical files."

X tried not to look too visibly happy or intrigued. Yes, theft and kidnapping were wrong, but murder was worse, he could really use a cut of the intel they were getting and he'd worked with Wilybots almost his entire life. He'd have to ask Lumine for Shade Man's e-mail.

* * *

_I will eternally be amused that X ends up ruling the world, probably due to a combination of popular demand and 'if you want something done right…' And then of course the only way to resign was to go AWOL, because apparently, as someone with more than 150 years of leadership experience by the time he left, he was too good at it for his own good and no one would let him retire._

_His feelings about politics are rather like his feelings about combat: he hates both of them, but he hates the idea of standing by and letting people be murdered even more. _

_What's interesting is that everyone here from the Classic timeline (except Kalinka, whose personal experience is that things have _always _been dark) is thinking that things are getting darker and darker, but from X's perspective, everything is so nice and sunny and genocide is a possibility instead of an ongoing reality! _

_Also, there are forests with trees that don't have mechanical life support built into them, and his family's alive…_

_I'd make a joke about 'this is so much Lighter and Softer he needs sunglasses' but then everyone would want him to take them off, he looks like Blues and it is scaring them._


	12. Could You Be Any Less Heroic? Please?

It was quiet here under the trees, except for the crunching sounds of their footsteps. The boots on X's feet were oversized for human footwear, if not for reploid: Zero'd watched him put on several pairs of socks, but the alternative was wearing snowshoes. While they both understood the importance of foot surface area to not denting floors in full armor, snowshoes seemed too easy to trip in, too easy to get caught on something.

Not that they were likely to be attacked here, and if something did try it, they could teleport in their armor.

Zero hoped not, watching X look up at the sky. They were heading into summer and the nights were getting shorter: was X looking up at the peaceful stars while he still could? While they were still peaceful?

A few scatterings of clouds, high up, but other than that the night was cold and clear, a three-quarter moon providing enough light for a human to see in this kind of light tree cover and "You haven't said anything," Zero said, and cursed himself.

X didn't lower his eyes to look at him, standing there in that pale blue padded coat, white-gloved hands in his pockets. "You still haven't killed anyone."

Zero almost jerked back, because while yes, _he _might agree with that statement, _X _saying something like that?

"You and your younger self… You weren't two different people. My family's home has a lot of sensors, for all kinds of reasons," science, security, evidence to clear someone's name if need be, "and that particular kind of energy…" after the stardroid invasion? "They showed me the waveforms, and I did a little reading to confirm some things, because I am rusty. You remember all of Sigma's bodies?"

Of course, he'd destroyed how many of them? "You're saying that Sigma got that from me." Along with the virus, with everything else that erased everything he should have inherited from Dr. Cain, from X, from the legacy X himself was only now getting to know.

"If you weren't capable of inhabiting different bodies…" X's fists clenched. "Then a part of you, a version of my best friend, would be dead, instead of just absorbed into you. Yes, I am angry with you. It's a reminder of how many times you've let yourself die. You hurt yourself again, Zero: you're my friend, of course I'm angry when you're hurt. I'm afraid. You're the only person I've managed to protect, the only person I've managed to save, and…" He shook his head. "I wish that you mattered to yourself. I feel so selfish, saying things like 'it hurts me that you do this to yourself,' when you did that because _you're _the one who is really in pain. My brother was maverick, and the only reason you didn't tell me, the only reason I didn't have to, didn't have to _kill him _was because you wanted to kill your father first, and…" X let out a deep breath, and determinedly unclenched his hands, wrapping his arms around himself instead. "There's still the time machine, if we have to. I suppose, in the end, I haven't said anything yet because I don't know what to say. I can't just install a chip and fix you. I never could, because this is not about your systems, or your origins, about what you really are. It's about who you really are. You're a hero," he said, turning sad green eyes to Zero.

His partner threw back his head and laughed.

"I'm serious," X said, finding himself smiling now because of how ridiculous it was, that Zero couldn't see this, after all this time. "You fight so hard to save everyone, regardless of the cost to yourself, and I really wish you'd stop doing that. I can't look after your emotional health: I can't even look after my own. Killing all those children who never had a chance, year after year: you're not the only one who was killing yourself, Zero. I suppose that's why it hits me so hard, why I know that's what you're doing. And I can't stop you, and I can't stop myself. I couldn't, because I _had _to do it, but now we're here, now I don't have to be a Hunter anymore. If you were less of a hero, if you were a little more selfish, if you were willing to do whatever it took to live, then I wouldn't have to worry about you, Don't you feel the same way about me?"

"Of course I'm going to worry about you," Zero said firmly. "This entire mess…"

"No." X said, holding up his hand. "Stop right there. I am not conceding that the virus is in any way your fault, but the problems we are facing, the danger we are in _right now_, has nothing to do with you. I am not in danger because of you."

Two pairs of green eyes met, and finally X sighed. "_Someday_ I am going to win that one," he insisted.

"Someday it might be true." Someday, Zero might stay dead.

"Someday you might admit that it's true. Stranger things have happened. Like time travel." Zero's laugh brought another smile to X's lips.

"It's just how things are." How Zero was built. Objective realities.

"Fate, you mean." X looked back up at the sky. "Do you know," he said, "that at the end of one of the wars, after you saved me in a way that you only could have if…"

"If I was really a maverick, all along? If I was Dr. Wily's creation?"

X shook his head. "That's not what's important. I was panicked then, I wasn't…"

"Oh," Zero said, nodding. "That time. Of course I know when you're talking about," he told X. "You don't panic easily." Of course it had taken something like that. Sigma claiming that he could possess X, that X could be used to harm innocents.

Zero was sure X didn't register the compliment: X's bravery was just something he needed to have, to save lives. He really did take it for granted. "Perhaps it was because I'd just been threatened with my worst nightmare that I was in a state of mind to imagine a worse one. I thought… Maybe it was true. Maybe Sigma was right, that the two of us were _supposed _to fight. That it was my destiny, that I'd have to fight over and over as long as you continued to exist, just like my brother had to fight over and over until he died. As long as both of us existed. Maybe one of us would have to die, for the wars to end, and maybe… I'd already chosen to kill people, to save lives. Maybe I would have to fight you. No, maybe I would have to _choose _to kill you. Maybe it was my destiny to kill you, a fate I couldn't avoid, because if it was fight you or stay silent, do nothing, and let people continue to die… And it probably looks like that's the choice I made to you, doesn't it? That I chose to let innocent people go on suffering, just because I valued your life more than I should have."

"You're too trusting, and too kind," was all Zero could say to that.

"And if I wasn't trusting, if I didn't have compassion, what then?" X demanded, anger in his eyes. "Then you'd…"

Zero smirked, not sure whether he'd won or lost. "I made you admit it."

"It is _not _true that you would be a maverick if it weren't for me."

"I don't like Sigma," Zero admitted. "I hate what the virus turned him into. He pretended to believe in me, X. Told me that I could use my power to save lives. Now you're the one that thinks I'm a hero… But that's only because I can look at you, to see what it is to not be a monster."

"I am not conceding that you're right, but, so that we don't get bogged down in this argument, let's say, just for the sake of the current conversation, even though I shouldn't be arguing from faulty premises…"

"Whatever you say," Zero said, gracious in his victory.

"I'm not too trusting or too kind. If I was too trusting I'd believe Sigma's propaganda because he's my son, and if I was too kind, I wouldn't fight him."

"If you were less trusting, then you wouldn't let me fight by your side. If you were less kind, you wouldn't keep forgiving me for everything that's happened because of me." X was still in danger for those very reasons. The things that saved Zero from being a maverick were the things that put X in danger.

"Trust and kindness are strengths, not weaknesses: the second and first cardinal virtues and… you're trying to distract me because you'd rather have me trying to beat you up, even verbally, than feeling sad." X gave a tree a considering look, not that he would actually bang his head against it, or even a wall. "This was much easier when you were two and didn't know enough about how to interact with people to carry on a debate well despite being _completely wrong_. I can't believe that I thought, 'well, when he's older, he'll have a little more perspective, and decades of saving the world will have proven that he's a good person who does good things. The evidence will speak for itself, because he's an intelligent reploid who will _listen _to the evidence.' No, you have just gotten incredibly stubborn in your old age."

"Says the android that woke up with a hundred years' worth of stubborn. I admit that I've done… some good things." Not everything. No matter how necessary or inevitable it was, Iris' death was _never _a good thing. Keeping X alive, fighting so he could have a chance to make the world a better place: that was a good thing. "But not because I'm a good person."

"You're a good person and determined to stay a good person," X told him. "And as long as you believe I'm… I don't even know. You clearly don't think I'm a good example…" Given how often he critiqued X's decisions and how he was constantly saying that X needed to be less of a good person, which was true. It would help him live longer, and he couldn't save anyone if he was dead. "As long as I'm a magic feather with the miraculous power to turn evil into good, then because you refuse to be a bad person, you'll keep me alive no matter what. You'll die, you'll throw your life away piloting shuttles rather than let me die, and I just remembered that you were right all along!" X said, suddenly grinning.

"About what?" Zero said cautiously, giving X the 'I know this is a trap' look that was mostly employed when the Shinobi and Elite 17th were doing war games against each other.

"I know you think that no matter what, you're not going to be able to die and the world will never be free of you," X said. "Dr. Light and Roll think you're right." While Rock thought that while it looked that way, and it was clearly Dr. Wily's intent, you really couldn't just go and let people blow up because in theory they'd be fine. What if something went wrong? "And that means that you can be an idiot and kill yourself as much as you like and I don't need to worry about you." So there. "In fact," X said, smile broadening. "You're the one who has to worry about me. Who knows how many people will be trying to kill me while you're gone? And since I apparently delude myself into mistaking evil people for heroes, if someone I trust stabs me in the back because you were too busy hating yourself to stay alive and watch it, then it will be all your fault."

Zero raised his own eyes to the heavens, and fell back the about six inches until his back hit a tree. It didn't even shake much, nothing compared to how it would have if he was in armor.

"If you die, and I die before you come back, I swear I will haunt you," X warned him, probably shaking a finger at him. "I will float around and say 'Zero…' and it will all be your fault for blaming yourself for the virus and thinking that I'm in more danger with you here than with you buried underground somewhere."

X's voice soft and serious now, Zero heard him say, "I'd rather say that you should live because you're a good person and you deserve to live, for all the people you've saved and all the people who have fought so you can live. No. I'd rather say that you deserve to live, the way _everyone _deserves to live, and have you understand that. But you hate yourself too much to listen to me when I say that, and I want you alive, so I'll fight whoever I have to in order to keep you alive. Including you, but especially destiny. I don't have to _like _it."

"Remember our big, climactic battle?"

"That was not a big climactic battle. That was you trying to…" X took a deep breath. "This is why I didn't want to talk to you about killing the younger part of you. The part that was actually enjoying life, as thought that's such a horrible thing."

"Maverick virus." X's brother.

"We weren't able to have this conversation in the open all those years," because someone might overhear, "but we've still had it too many times. You know how I feel. You might think it's because I'm too good a person, as though good is something divorced from reality instead of the _right _thing to do for a reason, but you still know how I feel about this. How many times have you saved my life, Zero?"

"You've saved mine, too." If Zero really was immortal that might not be true, he realized. He'd always thought that X had wasted his effort: turned out he was right about that for two reasons. But if X realized this, if X thought he hadn't repaid Zero at all? Then he'd try even harder, not realizing that he didn't _need _to repay Zero, Zero was the one who owed everything to him.

"I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you." Here, in this frozen, starlit forest, with a house far behind them containing a would-be world conqueror who had spent the past six hours getting a nice lesson in what it felt like to have some creep come along and ruin all your hard work by blowing it up and an Axl with no idea what it was like to lose a family or have to wonder what he was, if it was his fault they were all dead. "Meaning I wouldn't be here if it weren't for your father. Probably because my family wouldn't have lasted long enough to build me. I agree with you that we need to do something about him," X admitted, "but he's an important part of the current balance of power. It's an unstable situation, and if one of the major supports is kicked out, rocks are going to fall and crush my family." Among a lot of other innocent people.

"If we need to do something about him, and he won't stop until he's dead…"

"Zero. I don't want to say it."

That meant whatever he had to say was cruel, at least by X's standards. Zero didn't care, X cared too much about not wanting to hurt Zero, when he could take it (when he deserved it) so, "Well?"

"There's a difference between 'we have to do something about Sigma' and 'we have to do something about Repliforce.'"

"General was a coward and a traitor who would have gotten all his men dead or infected: how is that different from…"

"I don't care what happens to humanity," X said, with the air of someone quoting someone else, someone they didn't agree with, "I just want the people I care about to be safe."

"That's different."

"Why? Because she only tried to kill you, and you don't count? Even though killing you would have deprived the world full of people she wanted to _just let die_ of one of its protectors, meaning hundreds of thousands more innocent deaths? Well, then who do you think would have fought her next, Zero?"

"Iris… It wasn't right!"

"No," X agreed. "It wasn't right. She was… misguided. They all were, and it put countless lives at risk, and we had to do something about that, but I _know _you wanted to save them. They weren't maverick, they still had a _chance_." Not like Sigma, not like the poor bastards infected with Zero's virus. "Killing all of them wasn't a success, it was a failure. Just like killing your family would be a failure. Can you understand that?"

"…If you say so," Zero said, looking away.

X sighed, because now they were back to Zero's self-loathing, and leaned against the tree next to him. "I miss your admirers." Being able to sic them on Zero.

"If I ever find out that you were the one who told Layer…"

"She has optics, Zero." Had.

No response. It would have been a relief to turn to look at Zero and see the slight angle of his right shoulder that meant he was considering reaching for a beam saber, if it weren't for the fact that even reviewing audio logs, X had no idea what Zero detected that put him on edge. Zero couldn't know either, not when the moment dragged on without Zero either relaxing or going for the blade, not even a hint that he was focusing on a single direction, or a single type of sensory input. If Zero couldn't find what he'd detected, what system sounded the alarm, that meant it wasn't conscious-level input, and Zero's subconscious?

X summoned his armor, and as it teleported in they finally heard something.

* * *

_Magic Feather is a trope. _'_I swear I will haunt you' is a Zero series reference, of course. _

_I mean, Zero left him alone with people that forced him to rule the world! And he didn't even have Zero there to kill annoying people or introduce excess paperwork to his beam saber! If X wasn't X, vengeance would involve rattling chains, because _Zero _slept for _how _long, the lazy bum, while X was pulling all-nighters?_

_I should have made more deadbeat dad jokes in _Definition of a Reploid _than I did._


	13. Always Pick Uncertain Death

_Just read _Worm_. The resemblance between the crystals and the shards… There are so many Mega Man world fusion fics I want to do, you have no idea, and now there's another bunny. _

_Of course, given that Zero and a certain _Worm_ character would be the same kind of being in a world fusion-type crossover, and the absolutely _last _thing they need is for that being to not effing stay dead?_

_Read it, you'll see what character I'm talking about. Name's four letters long, starts with Z…_

_I do recommend _Worm_, although the first story arc has a tendency to make people stop reading, including me the first time I tried the story. I read it all the way through by following a link to a later arc and then working my way backwards._

_Loki in Norse Mythology is interesting as a personification of fire. You need fire if you want to survive in the Arctic Circle, and it lets you make all the nice weapons and things, but if you treat it with disrespect it's going to burn your house down. That's the way certain people see all technology, come to think of it. If you want the nice things... No risk, no reward? Or rather, 'think playing with fire is too dangerous? Hope you like freezing to death!' No fire equals certain death: fire equals uncertain death. _

* * *

Whistling with just enough of a metallic, synthesized edge to make it clear that this wasn't a sound produced by a human's lips and tongue, even though a robot master's audio equipment could have done a far better job.

If they _wanted _to imitate a human sound.

They saw the incoming teleport beam only after they heard the whistle: that was a good idea, come to think of it. Sending an audio cue ahead to warn people that someone was teleporting in, and let them know who it was, if there wasn't a prearranged terminus at the other end to advise people that someone was about to arrive.

It was polite, but then, politeness wasn't exactly considered a hallmark of this particular robot master. Not according to the legends at any rate.

Had he been watching them from further off and that was what Zero sensed somehow, with some old system calibrated for robot masters instead of the reploids they fought?

A black trenchcoat, not Ring Man's brown. Uncombed black hair, a little long, some of it standing in tufts and some of it falling over black sunglasses. It would take considerable effort to get that kind of carefully harmonious chaos out of human hair, but his was probably designed that way. Smart fibers or no smart fibers, if a unit was going to be wearing a helmet regularly, the designer had to take that into consideration. The one piece of color in the darkness was that yellow scarf, which seemed oddly appropriate, given the climate. He looked human enough to need something like that, even though he wasn't human at all.

This was the Wilybot that fought Mega Man during the Asteroid Alpha incident and then helped him defeat Gamma, rescued Kalinka Cossack when she was kidnapped by Dr. Wily and was then impersonated by the Dark Men and used as the figurehead of the Fifth Wily War, or whatever one wanted to call them. He and Forte were considered Dr. Wily's two most dangerous and erratic creations, both fighting Mega Man and assisting him for their own unknown reasons, although it seemed Forte's were common knowledge for the people of 20XX. Those who saw robot masters as people with their own reasons for doing things, at least.

"He's the one who cured Rock," Zero said behind him quietly, not bothering to use their coms.

X sucked in a breath. "I thought that was a new unit Dr. Wily was working on." A counter to Zero. A unit _with the ability to cure the maverick virus_, which even Zero, with access to the copies of his uncorrupted programming stored in his younger self, couldn't do.

An alternative to murdering the victims before they could murder others.

If this was an older unit, not a custom creation like Zero? If other robot masters could be given a program, or retrofitted with something that would let them not just resist the virus the way X did, but _cure _it?

He had to close his eyes, clutching an armored fist to his chest, because _what that meant_…

Racism was a threat to the lives of reploids, robot masters, humans, _everyone_. The fear and hatred sown by the virus had undermined the efforts of the Maverick Hunters to stop Eurasia from falling, made the loss of Repliforce possible. The virus itself was born of someone's hatred of a race, even if it was hatred of their own kind instead of fear of the other. Or perhaps it was fear of the people _they _saw as other, and what they would do to the people that scientist saw as theirs, their children. Either way, it was the belief that an entire category of people were incapable of being good people, of doing the right thing and not harming innocents.

Zero might blame himself, might call himself the destroyer of reploids but the true scourge, the thing that killed more reploids than anything else was the virus and if it was, if it really _was _possible to cure it?

Then so, so many people would never have to die. Reploids could exist someday without that fear.

He was aware of Zero stepping around him, heard the crunch of boots on the snow. Fabric rubbed against fabric, and surely that was Zero getting his beam saber out of where he'd secured it inside the sleeve of his own puffy red winter coat. X was sure Zero had only conceded to wearing the thing, something a human would need or not, because he could conceal upwards of a dozen weapons in it. If Zero's pair of energy pistols wasn't in there… Well, no, X didn't like gambling, not even on sure things.

X was the armored one, Zero was still unarmored, and_ Zero_ was the one moving to cover _him_?

That was always the way it was, even though Zero's design was slanted towards offense. Meaning X's armor was better and if one of them had to draw fire, it should _obviously _be X since he was better at ranged combat and Zero could move towards the enemy while X was drawing their attention.

He'd called Zero on it before, even if he'd had to say that Zero was doing it 'because I used to be your student' instead of 'because you blame yourself for the virus and don't want me to be hurt because of the virus even if that means I have to watch you get shot and I don't want to do that any more than you want to watch me get shot, so quit stealing my share of the enemy fire.'

At least Zero knew better than to get in front of X's buster arm.

Looking up to see Zero's yellow hair, and past him that scarf: even though they'd fought Lumine, it was impossible to think of this person as an enemy, not when he was Zero's brother. Everyone compared X to Mega Man, but many compared Zero to Blues. Those who knew the truth, that Zero really was a Wilybot like Blues, just didn't do it openly.

Rock had even referred to some of their fights as Blues teaching him things, when Zero was X's teacher, at the beginning.

21XX considered Blues an exciting antihero, a rogue. 20XX? After Forte, Copy-Rock and the reprogrammed Light Numbers under Dr. Wily's control, Blues was considered the most dangerous, X had found when he went looking online to see what the ordinary people thought about the conflict, and the robot masters caught up in it. He'd been involved in many incidents where people were in danger or lives were lost, even if there were no confirmed reports of him personally killing anyone. It seemed that outside the families, Blues threatening to kill Kalinka Cossack was lost in the chaos of an imposter taking Mega Man's place during a war.

"So he's not a new unit?" Zero asked, without turning to look at X. "Who are you, then?" Who do you think you are, and why are you showing your face here?

Zero didn't know from the whistle? Well, no, Zero wasn't someone who cared enough about what people said about him to look up the legendary figure people kept comparing him to, especially when he felt he didn't deserve to be compared to any heroes.

"This is Blues," X told him. "He's a Wilybot, like Forte." Another with a music-themed name, built as a counterpart or counter to Rock. Mega Man. "He's helped my brother before." Even before curing him, which still felt like a miracle of miracles to X. A gift he could never repay.

Having to kill his own brother? Even if Zero would surely have insisted on doing it for him, that didn't make a difference, not when Zero fought in X's name.

"You're from the future, or you _were _from the future," the Wilybot said, and smirked. "Good."

"What's so good about it," Zero wanted to know, and X could tell from the angle of his shoulders that his eyes were narrowed and he was making his suspicion blatant, along with the threat to ignite the saber that was still held inside the cover of that overlarge sleeve instead of in plain view if given a reason.

Yeah, no, they weren't going to get an answer, that expression said, and X didn't have to force one out of him. They needed to know what he'd done to cure Rock, but it was Dr. Wily's technology, so he wasn't their only clue to it, and right now no one was in danger. Zero _would _have told him if Rock or his younger self had infected anyone else: he'd have taken them out before it could become a pandemic. Unless he was trying to spare X? Or didn't want to kill them, the way he hadn't wanted to kill Iris?

No, X shouldn't doubt his partner, but so many people were alive now, so many were at risk that he would have _had _to if it weren't for that time machine.

He had the _luxury_ of being polite, being trusting, and not having to kill anyone, or even demand information. So he teleported his armor off.

Zero turned to look at him, not to confirm that X had just done that but to see if the robot master would take the bait and try to attack while X was relatively defenseless and Zero's back was half-turned.

"That's interesting. You should have energy shielding built into your armor: why is your energy signature clearer when your armor is on? Unless you don't just teleport your armor on and off, but also replace parts of your internal structure."

"I'm not generating power right now, it's on reserve, and it's true that my armor replaces most of my skin," X told him. "Almost all of my original structure was rebuilt during my hibernation, and although I don't quite know where it goes, there is a modular design that makes me very hard to analyze. Attempts to map my systems don't stay accurate, and my security system won't even let me at some of my parts. Sometimes my generator is here," he tapped his chest, "sometimes energy storage, sometimes different pieces of hardware."

"So when you're not using that crystal's power, you keep it away from the rest of you. That must be nice." That twist of Blues' lips wasn't envious, but…

X blinked. Was it really so easy for robot masters to detect things like that? Of course, this unit was built to assist Dr. Wily on the asteroid mission. It might have custom hardware for dealing with the asteroid's security units and other alien technology. "You can detect that I'm using something based on a power crystal? Or did you get that from my original plans?"

"I've been dead for awhile. The first version of your plans used solar, but I expected they would eventually admit that was inadequate for your power needs and go with fusion." His head turned, just slightly, to make it clear that he was talking to Zero now. "Your energy signature, on the other hand… it's distinctive, but that's deliberate. It's trying to make you look like you're an android, a unique unit developed in isolation, running fairly standard fusion. No, not standard fusion, it's definitely better than the units in most robot masters, but it's not the model Wily's using. He must have concluded that Dr. Light would give up and have X run on fusion, and tried to design a fusion generator optimized for androids. Androids would need power at different times and in different quantities than we do… But that's just there to run your body. It's there to be detected. The power source that's supplying _you _with power must also be powering the effect that's hiding it."

"And this is your business because…?" Zero asked, and X wished he wouldn't automatically take the role of bad cop. Still, they were dealing with a famously irrational person, prone to wanton destruction: if X spoke to him, he ran the risk of saying something that would set Blues off. If he remained out of it for now, then perhaps he could step in once he had a better read on Zero's brother or if things started to go wrong.

"The energy signature I detected hovering around Rock: it's completely different from what I'm detecting from you now."

"That was the Maverick Virus," Zero told him. One of its variants anyway, the one his younger self created to trap a robot master it wanted to keep. If Zero hadn't gotten there as quickly as he did, if he hadn't known that the virus would _destroy _Rock, not keep him safe, if it was allowed to work on him? "I owe you for curing him, but if you're telling me that my systems are lying to everyone? I already know that they're two-faced. I don't have enough control to drop the act." It wasn't Zero that was the two-faced one.

"You're the one that said you got your original, undamaged control programming from the younger version of you," the robot master told him.

"My true form…" Zero said, and turned back to look at X again.

"_If he thinks that detecting the virus from him will make me 'realize his true nature' and want to kill him as though I haven't already known that for years and holding how people were made against them wasn't wrong…" _X thought to himself as he looked at Zero with deliberately innocent curiosity. Well, wasn't Zero interested, to see what he really looked like? X wanted to see too, of course, because it couldn't be as horrible as all that and maybe Zero would find it so underwhelmingly evil that he'd realize that he wasn't actually bad, and maybe pigs would fly.

Well, surely someday (if they all survived that long), genetic engineering would get off the ground. One of these days, X was going to make it happen.

…The 'make Zero stop guilt-tripping' idea, not the 'engineering flying pigs' idea. He was fairly sure he could count on someone, somewhere doing that for fun, while there were always going to be technical problems that needed solving, even if reploid medicine wasn't a field quite yet.

So, "I don't see the harm," X said, stepping forward to put a hand on Zero's arm and meeting his eyes, because the fact he was inside Zero's kill radius unarmored, and knew this, and chose to be there in the certain knowledge that Zero was not going to harm him, still sent a message. Although it would be nice if Zero had gotten the message by now. "And it would be good if you had more control. Maybe you could learn to cure people too."

Cure people? Instead of kill them? Him?

Now Zero was the one thinking of flying pigs, given the look X was getting.

He just smiled and said, "Well?"

* * *

"Dr. Light?" he heard, and it was when he turned to show Rock he was listening that he saw Rush. The support unit must have padded into the room while he was working on the blast shield design he'd like to have before they started experimenting too much with teleport shields to see if they could shield against the stardroid ability to influence minds, human and robot alike. Thank goodness Dr. Cossack had his contacts in the Russian space program left from the asteroid exploration team contract. Even if they needed some way of shielding against the two types of energy the different power crystals gave off, the sheer potential power output of teleportation and Dr. Light's awareness of his own limitations meant that he didn't want to do _too _much fiddling with it on Earth's surface.

Especially when the things that gave him the theory that there was some commonality between this energy and teleportation that would allow teleport shields to be altered into something usable were some of Albert's comments about how his cold fusion generator worked, and if that was his starting point, if releasing unexpectedly large amounts of energy was the simplest thing that could be done with this technology...

He rubbed his eyes. Spending the day trying to figure out Albert's notes was exhausting. Not that this excused the Nobel Prize Committee. Winning a Nobel should have been a huge honor, but winning it and _knowing _that he didn't deserve it, that there was work that deserved it so much more than his did made it a mockery, turned what was supposed to be the highest honor into a reminder that all the accolades he received were hollow, undeserved. That he would never deserve to win first place in anything, that he would always be second to Albert.

Reputation was what others knew about you: honor was what you knew about yourself, and all these things meant to honor him, all these awards he really shouldn't have accepted, because he didn't deserve them. He wanted to believe that if he'd turned them down, they would have been given to the person who deserved them instead of the next mind down on their list, and then perhaps Albert wouldn't have yielded to pettiness and contempt.

Yet his reputation was the reputation of his technology, of his creations, and saying that robot masters weren't worth a Nobel? He couldn't give all the awards back, that would be an eccentric thing to do, people would talk, and he couldn't afford to remind people of Albert. Suspicious people might think that he'd decided that the invention of robot masters wasn't a good thing, that he'd found something out that made them a danger instead of the world's best hope, and he really did hate having to try to think like that sort of person.

"Yes, Rock?" Was he alright? Rush didn't normally come into the lab. Any lab, not after Auto caught him and did all those modifications, even using him as the basis of a car, without asking Rock. The thought of his son's poor dog caught up in that Battle and Chase… It wasn't as though Auto would have wanted him to get hurt, but Auto was young compared to Rock. Rush would have had to look after him, not the other way around.

It was really for the best that Forte ended up capturing Auto during the race. Forte didn't see Auto as competition, and none of Wily's attack robots would have been able to get near someone that Forte currently saw as his property. Not without Forte dealing with them.

The important thing was that Rush wouldn't be here unless he sensed that Rock needed him and it was true enough that Rock didn't shoo him out of somewhere he felt uncomfortable.

"The arm, that Dr. Cossack attached to another robot…"

Dr. Light closed his eyes and sighed. "I find myself hoping that's the case. Can you forgive me, Rock?"

"I trust you, Dr. Light," his son told him, both of them remembering another lab, the return from the asteroid, tired and defeated, and the fact it was theoretically a victory made it worse, somehow. All those 'might have beens.' Returning without anything they'd wanted to bring home with them, except their lives. "And that's why."

His father blinked at him.

"You didn't build that weak point into Gamma because you didn't trust Dr. Wily. You did it because you trusted him to be himself. Leaving a warbot like that in the hands of people who don't care about robots… And if you decide not to care about one kind of person…" Or refuse to see them as people? Rock looked down at Rush. "Duo… He wanted to destroy evil, but the only reason to fight evil is to protect what's good." The way Rock fought for peace, so people could live and be happy without having to be afraid, without having to hurt one another. "At first I didn't understand why…" Why he didn't see that? Why he didn't act like it? "Destroying good things… that's evil, and everyone has some good in them." Even Dr. Wily. "Even if he was programmed just to destroy evil, I think… it's not possible, not to know that." Clear green eyes looked up now, met his father's. "It's not right, to force robots to destroy." The way Dr. Wily did, when he reprogrammed Rock's brothers. "Saving people from that fate is absolutely the right thing to do."

"It's very dangerous," Dr. Light said, looking away, first just at the wall and then his eyes were drawn towards the largest machine in the room, and its contents. "Can you forgive me?"

"Of course it's dangerous," Rock said. "Fighting always is. Especially fighting to save people. But it was the only thing I could do. I knew that, even when I was new, even when I didn't know why I knew it, but I know now. I learned it from watching you. There's only one thing you can do, when people need help. Even when it means putting yourself in danger. Even when… I thought that maybe, Dr. Wily had just forgotten to take the two of us, since we weren't powerful enough to matter. If I fought, if I could become powerful, what about Roll? I was worried that he would come and take her too, if I went and fought him and lost. But they were our family too." The ones that were already taken. "And the people in danger were people, too. No matter what said I shouldn't do it, even my programming, I had to do it." The Third Law.

Less than a week old, and Rock was already choosing to fight, to commit violent acts against another being, which was the opposite of how Dr. Light hoped robot masters would develop. Less than a week, and he chose to violate the Third Law by putting himself in danger. Less than a week, and he was able to avoid it, never a sign that it even came close to realizing what Rock was truly doing. Choosing to fight a human, when hurting Dr. Wily would be a First Law violation, even if there were human as well as robotic lives at stake?

Dr. Light had been terrified, but not for the reasons others would say he should have been terrified. Not of Rock, not of the implications, that a robot master could be this way, but for him. He was humbled still. Such a kind heart, such a brilliant soul, and he had to chuckle, because "My boy, I wish I could say you got that from me."

"It's who I am," Rock said, because he'd heard about what Dr. Light and Dr. Wily said to each other, when Rock's brothers wanted to be repaired to fight the stardroids. He knew that Rock's will was important to his father. "But it would have taken me longer to figure that out, if I didn't have an example." He smiled. "I know, no matter what, that I'll be sadder if nothing happens than if something does."

"Even if it's something catastrophic? You've heard X." X hadn't given details. He hadn't wanted them to know what happened, and sometimes Dr. Light got the impression that X wasn't quite sure himself, what happened to his family. Some dreadful cataclysm, caused by an unknown force, and didn't that sound like what happened, when Earth was attacked from outside?

"I saved my brothers, and now they help me when I need it." When they could. "If it works the way we think it does, then X and Zero are here because you're doing the right thing." Rock frowned. "We're doing the right thing…" Well, not that he'd helped much so far, but he didn't want Dr. Light to feel he was in this alone. "They're _themselves _because you're doing the right thing. Just like that's why I'm myself."

* * *

_Blues thinks it's good that they're from the future and they don't know he's a Lightbot. Perhaps he wears sunglasses partially because his eyes are Lightbot green and he's hiding that he's a Lightbot? After looking over the color illustrations in the Megamix and Gigamix volumes, it looks like the author gives Rock and Roll green eyes except in a couple cases (one ambiguous, one stylized). Ice Man's eyes are blue, but that might just be a part of his color scheme. So, unless someone knows of a Hitoshi Ariga color illustration where it's clear what color Blues' eyes are, I'm going with green… if he wasn't infected, anyway. Of course, Dr. Wily could have changed them when he gave Blues the armor and the power crystal, so they could equally well be red normally. _


	14. Cloaked In Darkness

"There's too much power," Zero said, and even now that he had the capability to access data like this, he still didn't _want _to know. Even if he needed to know. "I don't care if we're in 20XX, the energy shielding on this property won't hide it."

And with X right here, without even the energy shielding built into his armor?

"No one was suggesting that you show us your maximum destructive output." Well, X hoped that Blues wasn't like Forte in that respect. "But if there was something that would help us analyze you…" Discover Zero's true nature, true powers, _help him get them under control_. If, in this new history, no one died because of Zero, then…

After seeing that look in X's eyes, that painful hope, Zero wouldn't refuse him. If only it didn't remind X of the return from Final Weapon. Of something that could still be prevented, of something he would do almost anything to prevent.

His partner was frowning, examining files the very existence of which made him feel there was blood on his hands, but from Zero's perspective, that was always true. "There's an energy form for appearing to people when I'm in between bodies. I think it's what Sigma used to body hop. It was designed to look impressive," Zero said distastefully, but so was his android body, "so maybe its readings will show off what you're looking for."

Zero didn't know what that would accomplish… No. This was a weapon. He might not want it, but he had it, and weapons had to be studied, their strengths and weaknesses learned, so that they could be countered. He might hate the thought of being studied, but that was simply shame, and he didn't have a right to hold back information just because of his own feelings, even if he'd done it too damn much. Of course he'd rather slay a thousand mavericks than admit he was the source of the virus, that he was built to kill X. Who wouldn't?

He'd expected it to feel like trying to force a door with a rusty lock. He'd refused to use these abilities, tried to become a mere reploid. If only it was possible to succeed. If only it wasn't so easy to slip out of his body.

"Mmm," X said, coming forward to take a closer look. "The wings are ornamental… At least for flight, but there are a lot of uses for surface area." Hmm.

He had maybe fifteen seconds, Zero thought, aware that he was trying to hold on to normalcy, before X found an excuse to call a dark purple glowy ball with far too many pairs of wings, or rather oddly-shaped triangles_ cute_.

Or maybe he'd just smile and pat Zero on what currently passed for a head.

"You look familiar," Zero said.

"Hmm?"

"I'm getting energy readings from you that I wasn't aware of before. But they're familiar." Meaning subconscious input, the same as his intermittent ability to tell when there were mavericks nearby.

The Wilybot, the Wilybot felt _jagged_. Like a closer scan would be sticking his hand into a pile of broken glass or those damn spikes. Like a maverick laired up at the center of some area full of the damn things, courting death every time they moved from where they recharged to where they did whatever Sigma'd tasked them with. No. Someone pawing through those shards, to see what they'd find.

X was still experimenting with how the energy of Zero's form repelled the electrons in his hand, creating an illusion of solidity with a bit of give to it, something like a stress ball, and observing the reactions of his own systems to that energy. Or that was probably what X would say if asked, but Zero was aware of X's thoughts on physical contact and how it calmed down normal people, meaning that what X was _really _doing was petting him.

He twitched his wings experimentally and X stopped trying to reassure him by petting him: if Zero was trying to figure out this new form and ability, then X knew to leave him to it. It was if Zero picked up a weapon and _didn't _put it through its paces that there was something wrong, something bothering Zero enough that his mind was working on that instead of information gathering and survival priorities.

Zero had signaled that he was fine now, so X stepped back, shaking out his hand. "My sensors aren't quite sure what to make of it either. Perhaps it's that it's not trying to break into my systems?" Unlike the virus, which swarmed Dr. Light's creation when it could. If it walked like a duck, but wasn't quacking like a duck, and X's systems identified ducks primarily by the quack? "Familiar may be the right word. I can't ID it, but I feel like I know this."

"Something like the virus, something you sensed from me?" Or would there have been leaks at all.

"Remember the Zero Virus?" X had already been exposed to something that combined viral energy with an energy signature he associated with Zero. "If this is a similar technology to my power source, then I may have sensed something like this before from myself, not from you."

That was it, Zero realized. X's clean burn, even the Wilybot's… ah, that was this feeling, like watching a recruit playing around with something that was going to blow them sky-high if they didn't stop messing around with it. Unless Zero kept an eye on them.

Of course Dr. Wily would have wanted his creations tagged as friendlies, he realized. That must be it. So if X had the same 'I know this' feeling, it must be because Zero had succeeded in getting his systems to consider him someone Zero didn't want to kill? Or was that being too optimistic.

Probably.

What could X and a Wilybot have in common, that he was sensing from both of them?

He let the Wilybot initiate a scan because that was, after all, the entire point of the exercise, even if X probably wanted to move slowly and let Zero get used to this before adding Zero's hatred of medical to his hatred of his unnatural systems. Even Zero wasn't worried that Dr. Wily had programmed the robot master to try to do something, maybe trigger some programming, not when he'd cured the virus…

Except that Dr. Doppler's vaccine, and Lumine's kind: they were both traps, playing on how desperate they were for a cure.

He didn't know how to fight in this form. His old programming might, but he refused to rely on it: no, he'd fight as a hunter, with the beam saber he still carried, thanks to X keeping it for him twice now.

His armor settled around him, teleporting in (stupid human clothing, why did X want him to wear it, as though soft padding would blunt _his _edge, would keep him from cutting those around him). "What's his game?" he demanded, beam saber out and ignited.

The robot master was both fast and precise, dodging back only the centimeter necessary: Zero never intended to strike him, just singe his clothing. That meant the ability to read Zero's movements, and other than Roll, and perhaps Shadow, Zero hadn't seen any robot masters who could move like he did. Ah: if this truly was a rogue Wilybot, then perhaps the old bastard had sent his ninja after him. He might have practice dodging Shadow's sword. "What makes you think I'm playing his game?" Blues smirked. "Haven't you heard I have a tendency to flip the board?" To remove Wily's captured Queen, to turn Forte picking a fight with him into a city in flames…

"It's _always_ a trap," Zero said harshly.

"More than you know… You're Dr. Wily's trap for me. I'm here to spring it, before someone else does. Like Rock did." He adjusted his sunglasses, and it was only X who was aware that sunglasses at night were counterproductive… Unless Blues' optics were designed to function behind a very dark visor. The moonlight reflecting off the white snow might actually produce enough glare to be problematic for a sensitive enough system, and optics like that would take serious damage from flash-bang grenades, damage that would be non-trivial for a unit that didn't have nanites to repair them, but would have to install replacement parts. Sunglasses that would automatically darken would protect against that: goggles would provide better protection, but humans wore them in far fewer situations than sunglasses. "Traps within traps," he mused. "We're both used to that, aren't we? Something incredibly dangerous buried in our systems, trying to turn us against the things we want to protect."

"The evil chip?" X asked, still not armored when the Wilybot hadn't summoned his own armor.

He threw his head back and laughed, not a mad scientist's laugh but there was more than a tinge of madness to it. When he lowered his head again, his sunglasses had slipped down, and red eyes met theirs, still full of arrogant laughter.

_Maverick _said trained reflex, and the light of an incoming teleport beginning to appear around X before he remembered _Wilybot _and resummoned his clothing. All the Wilybots in the legends had red eyes; it didn't mean anything.

Zero was already swinging, and Blues suddenly faded out from the stroke, reappearing half a meter back. That was not teleportation, X knew: he'd only seen anything like it from Zero, the kind of thing that people wanted to dismiss as martial arts, whatever the reploid equivalent of chi was, some kind of technical wizardry.

Of course the maverick hunter would recognize something similar to his own technique: he struck, and struck again. The smile never vanished from Blues' lips, and he dodged almost obligingly. It felt as though Zero's brother was humoring him by taking the time to do this when he could teleport out, or use this trick to move further away.

It wasn't just Zero studying Blues' movements: Blues was also analyzing Zero's combat style.

X was sure that if Alia or Lifesaver saw this, they would know right away that something wasn't right about the unit they'd assume was a maverick, given the eyes. X knew this certainly wasn't within a reploid's capabilities, although Axl could come close. It was within Zero's, and both Zero and Axl's capabilities were products of his time. X didn't know what was unnatural by 20XX standards.

Finally, Zero's beam saber was intercepted by a shield, and X's friend couldn't help a grin: this really was feeling more like a spar, a teaching session, than combat, and Zero truly loved those. They were where he could allow himself to feel his love of fighting, without the guilt of fighting mavericks. An unfamiliar opponent who was willing to play, who understood the art enough to know that Zero merely using slashes instead of any of his real abilities was the equivalent of both of them circling each other, looking for an opening.

If Blues, who fought Mega Man himself to test his abilities, was going to move to the offense?

They were going to lose quite a lot of trees, X realized.

The robot master, still unarmored, reached out with the arm that wasn't holding the shield. It seemed as though he was about to beckon Zero forward arrogantly, to begin a match.

Instead, he grabbed and _pulled_.

Zero jerked, his beam saber dropping to lie hissing in the snow.

"So _that's _the trigger," the Wilybot said, darkness appearing in his hand.

"Zero!" X ran forward.

"I… Colonel… Iris…"

Oh no. X would almost prefer it if the Wilybot had done something to Zero. He knew horrified realization when he saw it.

Blues said, almost absently, "Check your system logs." Most of his attention was occupied staring down at his hand. At the cords of dark energy that spiraled around it before flowing on towards his core from Zero's direction.

"Oh, thank…" X felt Zero's shudder, but Zero was a veteran. A security threat was a security threat: he could collapse with relief over not having infected Colonel during their spars when there wasn't a potential emergency. "How are you in the virus' system logs?"

"I _am _a robot master. It thinks I'm part of your network." On your side. How cute of it. "You've given me the most extraordinary privileges, but that's part of his trap," after all. Simply to be expected. "No, their trap, both of them. To be _trusted, _to be _needed_, to have someone you can help: there's no greater feeling, not even for humans. Helping each other makes them happier than anything else in the world, and yet their minds don't realize what their systems already know." He still wasn't bothering to look at them, entranced by that darkness. "Dr. Light knew that if humans wanted to survive, they needed robots that would choose to protect them, and _you_… That's how you've caught X. Dr. Light's attempt to create a being with absolute free will, and he'd walk through fire for you, do things he hates for you, because you'd do the same for him, and you _need _him."

A soft glow, behind the shades. "Humans? There are billions of them, they're an ancient race: they ought to be able to look after each other by now. If they can't…" A pause. Blues seemed almost embarrassed. He shook out his right hand, dismissing the darkness, and adjusted his glasses.

X watched with a slight frown on his face. That was close to maverick rhetoric, too close. Teleporting in his armor would take too long: this unit had to be used to the Lightbot style of combat, and given Blues' skill at not getting hit, X would need absolute surprise. It would be a shame to burn the arm off this coat channeling plasma through his hand, but if he needed to incapacitate this person?

Someone who was already unusually violent, perhaps even an irregular by robot master standards, exposed to the virus? That would not end well. Previous criminal behavior plus the virus was what produced Vile. This was the unit that cured Rock, so why was he drawing forth virus from Zero and letting it flow into his systems?

"That _is _clever. The false argument Mega Man constructed to pit against the false argument of the Three Laws, coupled with the stardroids' mission… But I have enough to think on for now."

Blues teleported out.

X sighed. Far too many questions, even if they now had a way to get more clues to the ones about Zero. It was a reminder of how little headway they'd made over the decades, that even now when he had access to information he still didn't seem all that close to any answers."Are you going to come out?" he asked the empty air.

"You won't be able to strike him with a sword," said the ninja from twenty feet up in a tree, although it sounded less 'it's impossible' and more 'I certainly hope it's impossible, because I spent quite a lot of time trying, failing and getting smirked at, so if someone _else _manages it that will murder what is left of my ego after all that smirking.' "And how did you know I was there?"

"Actually, I didn't," X said, looking up at him with quite a bit of surprise. How had he appeared out of a solid tree branch? He needed to ask Rock if he knew how Shadow Man did that. X was a ranged combatant. He put more work than Zero did into making sure that no one was sneaking up on him, even if having Axl in his unit had forced Zero to work on spotting and identifying people sneaking up on him instead of just waiting for them to make their move so he could make them dead. It would be a shame if he stabbed Axl in the field, mistaking a covert approach to report for one to attack. "I was talking about the person on the tree at five o'clock relative to you."

Yes, that right there was evidence that Wilybots weren't like mavericks. Mavericks couldn't handle that degree of extreme frustration without going into megalomaniacal rants of varying lengths and then shooting at something: generally hostages, X or Zero.

"I really didn't know you were there," X said, hoping that helped.

The ninja just sighed. "Also he was talking too much, compared to how he was before. Still not as much as you," he said, probably to the vampire, although he didn't turn to look at him.

"He _is _a splendid fellow. I like the way he dresses," said the vampire happily. "The wardrobe was the only thing I liked about that place. The more layers the better, when humans are involved."

The ninja's other eye closed when he winced. Why was he keeping one of his eyes closed? Didn't Dr. Wily keep his robots repaired? Perhaps it was also optimized for the dark, and the ninja only opened it when he was on a mission? "He's under the influence of the crystal, he just absorbed a great deal of the energy that fed Ra Moon," and that's much less nightmarish than what you just implied.

It was difficult for X not to find red eyes in the dark disturbing. "The crystal?"

"The original one that was brought back to Earth from Asteroid Alpha," the vampire said, before sketching an elaborate bow. "Your companion and I have met before, but I am Shade Man, of the Seventh Wily Numbers, and this is Shadow Man of the Third Numbers."

"My name is X Light." He was sure they were already aware of that, but it was polite. "Shadow and I have met before, although I hope you accept my apology for our behavior." Destroying that robot and nearly starting a fight in a time machine mid-journey. "Are you here on behalf of your father?" X asked after responding with a slight shake of his head to Zero's glance asking the rhetorical question of 'you're not going to let me attack them unless they make a move, are you?'

"Our father allows us to pursue our own interests, which is part of why we follow that wacky old coot," Shade Man said with a large smile that was somehow complimented by that large, almost sharp-looking nose. It wasn't a handsome face by human standards, but his personality carried it off well.

X liked meeting interesting people, and he hoped he wouldn't have to shoot this one.

"However, at the moment, I seem to be at loose ends," Shade Man lamented. "Lumine's ability to construct interesting materials on a molecular level is simply one of my side projects, until my father forgives me for putting him to sleep against his will and allowing him to wake up and hear Shadow asking for help from Dr. Light. Quite embarrassing and inconsiderate of me, to allow someone to haul away and save the life of the person who hauled me away and saved my life." Tsk tsk, how juvenile of him.

"Why do you need a space elevator when you can teleport enough mass to lift cargo into orbit?" Zero asked.

"Because the stardroids somehow isolated the planet's surface. Teleport coordinates out in space, even the teleportation terminus device Dr. Wily built on the vessel that visited Asteroid Alpha, wouldn't resolve. They also destroyed all functional launch capacity." Shade told him. "Fortunately, we were able to use some of my father's earlier work to send some of our number up there to fight them, but otherwise all the robot masters of this world would have been trapped. Like rodents _without _wings," he added, stretching one of his own. "They intended to keep anyone from fleeing this planet the way their creators did on Asteroid Alpha."

The way Repliforce tried to flee on Final Weapon, and Eurasia had _planetary terraforming devices _on board for a reason, X knew. No one had publically announced that it was a generation ship, but it wasn't like it was hard for either X or Sigma to realize the station's true purpose.

A species trying to escape their executioners…

"Bringing with them a certain number of those crystals. Since they tried to warn whoever found the ruins of their last hope that the arrival of those objects on their planet made their fate one of destruction, even organic life should have realized that bringing them along would make all their efforts for naught, but it seems as though they had no alternative power sources capable of running life support on such a voyage. Given how distinctive the power signature is, and that apparently Terra was able to identify Blues as one of their number, I would guess that the crystals are _designed _to be easy to track." Shade almost sparkled at Zero. Almost. "Which makes our father's ability to hide your power signature so well exactly the sort of thing one should expect from the great Dr. Wily."

Shadow's one open eye was looking up to the heavens, wondering why, why someone who _talked so much _could sneak up behind him and hang out there so easily. It seemed like one annoying talent should have locked him out of the other.

"Dr. Wily installed the crystal he retrieved into that ungrateful traitor," Shadow said, using the word 'retrieved' instead of 'stole' even though the crystal was never Wily's to begin with. "Forgive me for saying that about your brother," he backtracked, more on his account than theirs, and Zero wondered why the Wilybot thought he would care.

It was Shade that questioned that statement. "Oh? I heard that you were telling anyone who would listen, except our father who actually asked why you were so upset, how he had no honor and you would never forgive him."

"His valorous death serves as proper atonement for his sins-" So much easier to talk about a robot's death when they weren't dead anymore. If only there was anything left of Copy-Rock to be retrieved and repaired except debris.

"Says the unit who cut himself and traumatized the poor Dark Men," Shade said, examining his claws, "To make up for doing his job for once instead of dying stupidly."

Shadow grimaced: alright, maybe he did understand Blues' tendency to take apart the Dark Men on sight."…I suppose he had no reason to feel obligated to Dr. Wily for extending his life when he did not wish to live, and he was a Lightbot to begin with, he owed our father no filial piety." Shadow didn't look at Shade: he didn't want to see the arched eyebrow that indicated Shade's opinion of Shadow's filial piety or lack thereof.

"Lightbot?" Zero asked.

Shadow turned around to look at Shade, then back to X and Zero. "I thought everyone knew that."

Shade held up his hands: he was still happy they were clawed now. "I only knew because our father saw fit to tell us after his miraculous resurrection."

"I _thought _he looked like X," Zero said, frowning.

Shadow didn't seem to notice that Zero had spoken. "Even Mega Man?"

"I would assume not, given how protective he is of his family. He would think that Blues' behavior is the product of an evil chip, and be motivated to defeat him and bring him home instead of simply driving him away."

"_Does_ he have one?" X wanted to know.

Shadow ignored him as well. "You mean that people have been thinking that he was one of _us _this entire time? Thinking that _his_ behavior reflects on the rest of us?"

"Would you rather have his behavior reflecting on the rest of Dr. Light's creations?" Shade asked him. "_Our _father protects us from the humans and their unjust laws. Dr. Light needs Dr. Wily to rescue his own children for him."

Shadow nodded and frowned, forced to admit that was the case.

"He certainly is a dashing fellow," said Shade Man. "If I'd known that you were comparing me to _Blues, _of all people?" Did it count as flattery even when Shadow hadn't meant it as flattery?

Shadow gave him a cautious look. "You and Freeze Man weren't built by the same people, were you?"

"I'm hurt," Shade said. "As an older brother, you could take at least a little interest in the lives of your siblings, and as a ninja?" He should gather information. Tsk tsk. "Freeze Man was used for dangerous physics experiments by people trying to figure out how cold fusion works: while of course they were unable to understand the fruit of our father's genius, Freeze Man's generator is anti-entropic, creating an effect similar to the Maxwell's Demon thought experiment, which gave him a means of simultaneously powering himself with the high-energy molecules and using the cold to shield himself from the humans until help arrived when they demanded that he carry out an experiment that would have annihilated a large area and refused to take his word for it. I, on the other hand, was simply a humble entertainment unit, trying to manage the upkeep of a small theme park and serving as one of the attractions. An inhuman monster playing the role of an inhuman monster. I had no weapon or armor and my wings were merely ornamental."

"…I was asking if you were also a fanboy." Although at least Ice Man wasn't _Blues, _so Freeze Man clearly had better taste.

Zero's next meaningful glance at X wasn't 'can I kill them yet?' It was 'are these guys for real?'

X wasn't entirely sure whether or not it was a show put on for their benefit (certainly Shade Man was putting on a show, but it might just be habitual instead of intended to trick them), but it was very interesting. It was nice to see people who weren't on the same side he was just talking instead of attacking, or assuming he'd attack them.

Shade Man might be the sort to willingly join the mavericks, if they were back in 21XX, but actually, X doubted it. He seemed too canny to be tricked into thinking that the virus didn't exist, or that it really wasn't so bad, instead of making its victims more and more insane over the decades. If Shade Man _was _maverick, he'd be less of a threat than he was as a Wilybot: the virus degraded the victims' intelligence, presumably to keep them from realizing that something in their minds was wrong and trying to fight it, and even though X didn't know what Shade Man's master weapon was, he doubted it was half as dangerous as what was in the unit's head. Compared to the X-Buster and Z-Saber, there weren't many dangerous weapons, only dangerous people. Or perhaps it was X's Weapon Copy System that caused him to see other people's weapons less as threats to his own life and more as handy little tricks that would soon be in his arsenal.

"Does he have an evil chip?" he asked again. "And what do you think the crystal is doing to him?"

"The evil chip contains a hardwired antidote to the Three Laws. Destroying them is the first thing it does when it's installed. Since Blues has the Three Laws, he can't have an evil chip." Which was why it stunned Shadow that Blues had those contemptible things.

"As for the crystals," Shade chimed in, "we're investigating that, and wouldn't our father be pleased and surprised to hear some results from me and Shadow?" Pleased Shade did something useful, surprised Shadow had: Shadow just stared at him briefly, knowing it wasn't going to help to say anything. "He hasn't seemed to connect properly to _anything _since he rebooted, with the possible exception of his support unit. He hasn't attempted to hack any of the doctors for information. He's gotten information from the internet, but using a keyboard and a, a _search engine_." If one could believe it. Shade barely could.

"He's nosy. There is no way he would accept going without proper intelligence on the state of the families and Dr. Wily's plans unless he was concerned he might contaminate or damage the systems he came into contact with." Blues' behavior proved that he was a danger to others and knew it.

"Clearly," said the vampire, "you have had years of exposure to a _wonderful _example of how a ninja should behave-" So why had he not learned any of these behaviors, he would have gone on to say if not interrupted.

X had cleared his throat, looking apologetic. "I do want to talk to you, and thank you for making friends with Lumine," especially since he'd managed to annoy most of his brothers, "but…"

"Ah, yes." The vampire snapped his claws. "I wanted to ask you what the symptoms of the virus you knew were."

"If he's infected, then why would he free Rock? To take him away from me, so he would actually be turned?" That was what concerned Zero.

"Are you certain he was cured?" X asked, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"As certain as I can be." When Zero's body could be determined to oppose him, he couldn't trust any of his sensors, and this wasn't even data he'd received from his body, but through his connection to the virus.

"I'm sorry," X apologized, "but I think it's urgent, now, that we study you."

"Anything I can do." Of course.

Anything.

X knew he meant it quite literally.

Green eyes looked up at the vampire. "You think he hasn't infected anyone and he's trying not to infect anyone?"

"He has had a stardroid crystal in him since he was refitted into a warbot. He said that Terra recognized him as one of them, but although he has betrayed Dr. Wily and done some very cold-blooded things, like dismembering other Lightbots to avoid having to deal with complications in his plans, and told the Copy of Mega Man…" Maybe it was being reminded of Shade's past that made Shadow list the robots that suffered, instead of the burning city or Kalinka Cossack. "Dr. Wily made this virus based on the stardroids and their crystals. He knew when Rock entered the room with that energy around him and set off his alarm that there was a danger it would feed some fragment of the crystal within Blues. The stardroids' goals are not those of Dr. Wily: he would have programmed his virus to restrain the crystal's programming. Now, the will that resisted the crystal may be resisting the virus instead." But wasn't the virus just something like an evil chip? Shadow had one of those: he'd had it from the moment he woke up, so he didn't have an opinion on it one way or another, it was simply part of his circuitry. Shade, on the other hand, would let his be removed over his dead body.

The Lightbot nodded, and it was like talking to Mega Man, although there was a military reserve instead of friendliness barely kept restrained by duty. That same competence, that same inner certainty.

"We don't understand why I'm immune to the virus," he told them. "We don't know if it acts differently on robot masters, but I'm getting the impression from Dr. Light that Dr. Wily wouldn't want the victims' IQs to drop, or for them to senselessly kill other people, reploids as well as humans."

Judging from the way three red eyes were staring widely at him, that was a definite no.

"I'll tell him about that little bug," Shade Man promised. "Perhaps I'll let you know what he says." He wrapped his wings around him dramatically as he teleported out, managing to make the beam of light look like an extension of the motion.

"And why were_ you_ watching us?" Zero asked Shadow, now that the trickier one was gone. He'd claimed they were pulling a joint op, and someone damn well should have brought backup if they were trying to spy on X and Zero and wanted anyone to survive to get the information back to Sigma or Wily, but Shadow hadn't known Shade was there.

"Mega Man passed on a warning from the two of you that Lumine was likely to attempt world domination again, on his own initiative. I was confirming the existence of those plans and sending the schematics to Dr. Wily," who was probably going to send the newbuilt an e-mail involving a lot of red pen, "when I detected something that reminded me of shortly before the White Giant attacked." He'd tracked the sensation to Zero, and found Blues there as well. "The last time I felt that sensation, a number of robots also sensed that something was very wrong." Which was why the Second Numbers hurried to Wily Island. "You should let Mega Man know that if he did sense anything, it was a false alarm."

"Oh dear. I'll call him as soon as we get back to the house," X promised. First Shade suggesting the possibility that he'd give X information, or even be a channel between him and Dr. Wily, and now this?

The ninja gave a slight bow and teleported out.

"Did he just let us know about a plan that Dr. Wily was interested in?" Meaning the two of them would damn well stop it, and Shadow had absolutely no awareness that this was treason?

"Your father," X said, "has no idea how to run an army."

"I thought that robot masters were supposed to be inherently organized," Zero said with a little disgust. The Shinobi Unit might be special operations, but they _knew _that discipline was what kept them alive, for as long as they were going to stay alive. "It's like none of them are ever on duty." Except your brother. "They're just _playing." _

"I know," X said happily. "Isn't it wonderful?"

* * *

_Think the Dark Elf. I could have/Wily would have designed something more impressive/deadly-looking, but X wanted to pet the eldritch abomination, and it amused._

_There are at least two Hitoshi Ariga Mega Man stories that aren't in the collected volumes printed in English. Both of them can be found scanlated online. One is about X, and I'm sad I lost my bookmarks, since there was a fan-drawn webmanga sequel to it with iX online somewhere – if anyone knows where I can read it, I'd appreciate you letting me know. Another is around fifteen pages and it's an intro to the game where younger Lightbots were going to be retired due to an age limit. It's very clear that Wily is going 'FFS, Thomas, get your act together. I can't keep saving your kids forever, I'm supposed to be the evil villain here.' _


	15. Lightbots Do Not Start Fights

_There was this comic on tumblr with Zero seeing that Ciel was upset and asking her who he needed to _murder horribly_, and then the author was 'It seems like it should be a joke, but that's basically canon for you' and included a screenshot. _

_Ah, X8. Axl going 'That loser's making X upset, what do I do… Oh, yeah!' (Applies bullet.)_

_I'm sure Zero was thinking that the young grasshopper had learned well._

* * *

"That was you guys?" Roll let out a sigh of relief. "I'll let Rock and Ring Man know." They'd notify the other Light and Cossackbots. "And I'll tell Ice Man to e-mail Freeze Man about it." That would take care of the Wilybots. Now that the panic was receding, she realized, "I hope Forte doesn't attack an aircraft carrier or something out of frustration when he can't find any stardroids, they're going to be on high alert too." Not that there were many aircraft carriers. Even before the stardroids came, one managed to piss off Forte, it was totaled, and those things cost something like five hundred billion zenny. Not counting the planes, and the poor people, and cleaning up the wreckage of an old-style fission-powered vessel. Then the stardroids, trying to fill everyone with despair, attacked Earth's military forces as well as robot masters and aircraft carriers were big targets. There were a few that were under construction before the stardroid incident that were rushed to completion, but militaries weren't going to put money into technology that was useless against robot masters, especially when some people kept assuming that it was only a matter of time before human armies would have warbots to fight warbots.

"I am sorry," X said again. "I thought the energy shields on the property would cover it."

"Privacy systems didn't keep people from seeing Ra Moon," Roll pointed out. "Teleport shields didn't either, but we're hoping to try something based on that. Don't come by until the day after tomorrow, alright? This sounds like something that'll be really helpful to study, but some of the robot masters that sensed it weren't in the Three Families, so the media has already found out." There would be visitors, and there was one news network that had a robot master named Plum.

"I'm sorry."

"They'll probably assume it was Dr. Wily messing around again." It generally was. Roll paused: he could see her wondering if this was really the time and then deciding yes, this was exactly the time. "X, do you mind me asking something?"

"What is it?" he wondered, blinking innocently.

"I just wanted to know, and I want you to know that we won't love you any less no matter what the answer is," Roll promised, "are you evil? I sent the analysis notes you sent us on to Kalinka and her dad, and they think you're really good at politics. So, evil?" It was the obvious conclusion. "Was the thirty-year hibernation not enough, or did you just find yourself having to deal with politicians?" Poor innocent baby X. "Well, it doesn't look like we were there to be a good influence, and you're our baby brother, so we're not going to hold it against you even if you did try to take over the world." But obviously she hoped he wouldn't do it now, because Rock would hate to fight family that had actually chosen to fight him.

"I know," X said softly, remembering the note Dr. Light left. That he'd known that X would be so very dangerous, and still gave him life, wanted him to live. "As for whether or not I'm evil…" What was a Hunter, a killer, but a necessary evil? "Well, I haven't taken over the world yet?"

"Coming from you," Roll said with a very slight roll of her eyes, "That actually means something." A member of her family would actually do it if he put his mind to it, unlike Dr. Wily who was just screwing around and letting people like the Cossacks get caught up in it.

"Oh, right," X said. Speaking of taking over the world. "I need to go have a talk with Lumine, and then I'll send you the data I got from Zero."

* * *

He wasn't planning to reveal their plans yet, but X _had_ asked. Lumine had hoped for more of a reaction than this, though. Maybe he should work on his gloating?

It might have been a better idea to learn to observe people instead, since then Lumine might have noticed that X's buster arm was tensing.

When Lumine finally finished, it took X a moment to say anything. "You want… to build a space elevator, to use the perfected version of the sonic mind control master weapon Dr. Wily built into Shade Man to brainwash and subjugate the global population."

Lumine nodded, pointing to the large version of the plans he'd pulled up on the screen.

X opened his mouth, closed it. Closed his eyes. Counted backwards from ten. "Excuse me a moment," he said, and left the room. Lumine could hear him walking downstairs.

* * *

"Ah, good. There you are, Zero."

X's voice sounded a little off.

"What's wrong, X?" Zero asked, turning around, his eyes narrowing.

X stepped closer, reaching forward to grip Zero's forearms solidly and look up into Zero's eyes. He took a deep breath, then smiled and said "That's better."

"What was that about?" Zero asked when X walked away.

X half-turned back to him, looking up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. "When I heard Lumine's plan, I thought 'Oh damn it, now I'm going to have to kill him.' Because for decades, I've had to kill people. I realized that death, not capture or negotiation, had become my default response to that kind of threat, and that was very disturbing. For so long, it was simple. 'Eliminate the mavericks.' No choices, no alternatives, just destruction. Simple. But that way of looking at things, not valuing the lives of others enough to even_ try_ to find a way to save them… If there's such a thing as evil, that's what evil is."

Well, it wasn't as though negotiating with mavericks ever worked, Zero might have pointed out, but X's words seemed familiar somehow. 'Eliminate the mavericks.'

His search function turned up a handful of orders to the Elite 17th, which did not have the luxury of holding back when they were not immune, and often were escorting refugees, no matter how much X hated giving the order for his newbuilts (after so many years, they were all newbuilts to X) to kill, even to stay alive. Those words appeared in the wars that were X's nightmares, and also in one of Zero's nightmares.

Even if destroying Zero might have freed X from the virus' curse (unlikely, Zero knew, but when nothing else worked, when there were no other hopes?), if X was ever reduced to that?

Then Zero would have destroyed X, the way he'd destroyed Sigma. Destroyed him the way the creator of his nightmares wanted, destroyed… Destroyed everything that was good in the world, destroyed the only force that might have made that blighted world a better place someday.

"I needed to remind myself that I don't always have to kill my enemies, and sometimes doing the right thing," Zero translated that as 'not killing people' given X's definitions of the right thing to do. "Doesn't have horrible consequences. I may have had to kill people in the past, but here and now, I don't have to kill Lumine. If they try to build that tower, I will blow it up. Or at least the mind control devices. Space elevators are very useful, and I'm sure they could find a few robot masters to go over the systems with a fine-toothed comb and make sure I got all of them. I have alternatives," X said, and smiled.

Zero raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Did you just use me as your motivation to not do the sensible thing and kill Lumine? But I _want _Lumine dead," he pointed out. He wanted X to let Zero kill him. "Can we really afford a distraction like him at a time-"

"Yes, time. Time machine," X said happily.

"You know how you get when you're my reason to do something you don't want me to do?" Zero asked.

"And now you have some idea of how it feels." So no, no heed would be paid to Zero's objections.

Zero shrugged: he hadn't expected that to work. X wasn't going to throw away someone's life over a minor question of whether or not he was being righteous enough. "You're the only one who cares about whether or not they're a hypocrite." Wasn't it a hundred percent hypocritical for Zero to be a Maverick Hunter when he was a maverick? For him to be called a hero by the handfuls he saved when he was the reason multitudes perished, the reason they had to be saved in the first place. If his options were acting like a hypocrite or a monster, then he'd pick hypocrite.

"You're inspiring me to do the right thing, Zero. That's a good thing."

That was almost as brain-breaking a concept as Zero somehow learning how to cure the maverick virus. It felt like anything that _anyone _did because of him, even X, had to be the wrong thing to do. Because he was evil, so he could only be an evil example. Not that X was a good example about _everything_ just because he was a good person, but…

"You _are _inspiring, Zero. Don't you see it in your unit?"

"They think I'm a hero." It wasn't Zero that inspired them, it was all a lie, a façade. Trying to set a good example so they didn't see what he was really like, so they had a chance of not becoming like he was.

Maverick.

X brushed past him, heading for the other stairs to take another shot at Lumine instead of returning to his room. At _talking _to Lumine, sadly. He patted Zero on the shoulder as he passed, in lieu of saying, once again, 'You are one.' What he did say was, "Hopefully, someday, you'll be able to inspire yourself without me. I certainly hope I could have done the right thing even without you here… but I hope that I never have to."

* * *

"Oh?" the eldest robot master asked, holding out his arm so his cat could jump down to there from his shoulder and reach the ground without undue jostling.

The eldest? Were either of them true robot masters, when Shadow's body was of alien origin? When Blues was corrupted by the stardroid crystal and had spent only a fraction of his total runtime as a robot master?

He showed his support unit a level of consideration Shadow would not have expected of Blues. "Dr. Wily has dispatched me to bring you in."

Blues laughed, and although it was certainly mocking, it was less so than it usually was when Shadow fought him. Not because Shadow was being any less childish in Blues' eyes; was the rogue Lightbot in a good mood? "Bring me in? _You _could only bring me in if something had gone wrong with the combination of the crystals and his virus, and Dr. Wily would never assume that he could have made a mistake like that. Even if something had gone wrong, it wouldn't damage my ability to fight." Quite the opposite.

"X claimed that the virus Zero carried lowered the intelligence of the afflicted units."

"Ah." Of course Dr. Wily would want to check that. One Forte was bad enough. Blues looked over to Shadow's left. "Tango, what are you doing?"

Shadow whirled to see his support unit caught in the jaws of Blues' cat. A cat infected with a virus that was Dr. Wily's latest attempt at trying to cause robotic units to seek to harm others, combined with the malice of the stardroids.

"You're not fooling anyone, Tango," Blues said. Tango's answering mrow made him glance at Shadow. "_He_ is far too straightforward, and of course he's concerned for his support unit." So he didn't count. "Put the frog down and leave pretending to be evil to the professionals."

Tango padded over and put Jiraiya down between Shadow's boots with what Blues hoped was an apologetic look.

"He thinks I died on his watch, so he's trying to find more ways to be helpful," Blues explained, shooing the cat away, out of the line of fire.

"Taking innocent lives hostage: you are clearly a terrible influence," Shadow accused him, once Jiraiya was safely teleported away.

"Remind me again: what was the serial number of the unit that acquired Kalinka Cossack for Dr. Wily?" Blues didn't wait for an answer. "He wants to see _how_ I beat you." If he lost to Shadow Man, then he really would need his processor examined, true. "And… leave it at that."

"You talk too much," Shadow was certain of it. "Compared to how you were."

A corner of Blues' mouth turned up. "True. Explaining things was burdensome, before, but now I can feel what my words do to people." Tell whether or not his attempts to communicate were doing any good. Of course a unit that didn't have speech capability for the first decades of its life would have grown used to, sick of, failing to get through to people.

"Terra also talked too much." Using his words to try to terrify them, to break their hope and fill them with fear.

Perhaps the greatest difference of all between how Blues acted before and how he treated Shadow now, the ninja realized, was also the most insulting one.

Blues was paying attention to him.

It wasn't that he ignored Shadow Man: no true ninja would ignore an obstacle, or any piece on the board. Yet that was it: he had never been more than a piece on the board to Blues. An enemy piece, perhaps, but never a true obstacle, never one that had grabbed more than a fragment of his attention.

Even when Shadow sought his death, as revenge for Blues' part in the Copy's death (because who else was he to blame? Mega Man wished to stop it, Forte was simply acting according to his nature, but Blues knew what the Copy intended and did nothing), Blues had rarely even bothered to fight back, never left him as dismembered parts on the ground, simply dodging until he felt like delivering a single strike as though it was a minor entertainment.

Not holding back the same way he did against Rock, when he pretended to be a robot master based on Mega Man with a mimic of Mega Man's combat style, like Forte. Shadow was present when Dr. Wily intervened in Rock and Forte's battle in order to take the opportunity to destroy Mega Man. He'd seen the look on Rock's face when Blues annihilated those sniper joes. Of course someone as skilled as Mega Man would realize that if _that _was Blues' true prowess, how he fought when he was annoyed enough to simply destroy an enemy in the most efficient manner possible? Then not only had Blues been holding back every time he fought Mega Man, but Mega Man hadn't even pressed him hard enough to force Blues to drop the style akin to Mega Man's he was mimicking and fight using his real style.

That battle had revealed to the Lightbot that Blues was far more willing to kill and permit death and destruction than Mega Man had realized, and _Mega Man had no accurate combat data on him_. If Blues attacked Mega Man with intent to kill, and Mega Man fought back with strategies based on what he'd learned from fighting Blues, the battle would be over very quickly.

_Shadow _had more accurate combat data on Blues than Mega Man did, but that was because Blues hadn't bothered to conceal his real style, dealing with the ninja. Or could Shadow even say that? Blues might move entirely differently when he fought Shadow than when he battled Mega Man, but Shadow couldn't say that Blues fought seriously against him, that he'd seen how Blues fought when he was serious. Was Blues mimicking his opponent when he dealt with Shadow, the way he did when he fought Mega Man? For one a battle of busters and armor, Blues' shield a comment on Mega Man's will to protect others (as well as something to protect Blues' failing systems) while with Shadow Blues showed off the strength of agility and strategy, how a unit had no need for armor if their opponent couldn't land a hit?

No, he was flattering himself again. He knew that Blues didn't respect him enough to see him as worth training the way he did Mega Man. Not even a practice fight or a systems check: that would imply that Shadow was strong enough for Blues to test himself against.

An adult indulging a child's need to vent his grief.

Dr. Light's original sentient machine, continuously operating since the human's post-graduate work, even if he was upgraded into sapience as a test case not long before Dr. Light decided that it was safe to work on the First Numbers. If the upgrades induced some emotional problems, best to test them on one unit instead of eight, most of which were ordered sent out to their buyers immediately after activation, so that researchers other than Dr. Light could monitor them, to see if they were safe.

Blues' only problem was a sudden fusion generator glitch. The sadistic tendencies had revealed themselves only later… after that generator was replaced.

Now Shadow discovered that his original self, or at least the first inhabitant of this body, was built long before Blues, and who knew how long it had operated before dying in combat against the stardroids? He'd failed to protect an entire race before: Was that why he knew he was not strong enough or skilled enough, could never be strong or skilled enough, despite refusing to give up? Even if he wasn't as mad with the desire for strength as Forte, another unit incorporating alien wreckage.

Or was it simply that Rock and Blues… that he would never be comparable to them?

The awareness that Blues was watching him, analyzing _him_, even considering fighting him, should have inspired caution. He knew what dangerous opponents the stardroids were, he knew that he had been no match for Blues even when Blues was dying, body falling apart around him. Shadow had _fought _him, and he'd never even realized that there was anything wrong with Blues, except in his head!

The potential for destruction hung heavy in the air, and he should have returned to make a report, should have regretted that his old enemy (even if Blues didn't acknowledge him as an enemy) was being controlled, but all he could think of was how long he'd wanted Blues to acknowledge him, to face him seriously, because Blues dismissing Shadow's attacks wasn't just dismissing Shadow, it was dismissing the Copy's death. Insulting not just him but the reason he fought.

"You wanted to try to take me? Then you should have struck from the shadows, you should have tried to sneak up on me," Blues said, taking a step forward, and Shadow was reminded of how light on his feet Blues was without his armor, and the question of how humanoid legs that seemed so thin without armor could strike hard enough to remove his opponents' better-protected limbs had never been answered to Shadow's satisfaction, not that he had asked Dr. Wily. His father wanted people to learn to answer their own technical questions, dammit, as part of learning to handle their own repairs and repairing their robots, which was a simple life skill to most robot masters other than Shadow. He would have to watch, circle to be sure he didn't let Blues within striking radius unless it was on Shadow's terms.

"How brave of you," the dark-robed elder mused. "The crystals want to kill brave people slowly, so all can watch and despair. The virus wants to keep you." He sighed, and the air of threat vanished. Not the aura of danger, but the intent to attack Shadow specifically. "I drained quite a lot of energy from Zero. I wonder if that terror was gathered by Ra Moon, or by him? I should test out these capabilities while I have more energy to use before I have to recharge again, but even though I'm not interested in you, the virus is. It _is _a problem…" Where to find something worth fighting that Wily's programming wouldn't try to make him infect while he was distracted by combat. "Because we will have to fight again, and not each other."

"The aura of danger we all sensed last night? That was when Zero released himself." But wouldn't Blues know that? He was right there.

"It wasn't Zero we sensed, or rather it wasn't we who sensed Zero."

"The White Giant?" The White Giant that attacked Wily Island, that tore through Shadow's brothers trying to kill his father. If Dr. Wily hadn't built all of them from the ground up assuming that they would be attacked, that Rock might use lethal force accidently or another foe deliberately and done something he refused to explain even to Shade because if they knew about it, someone else might find out from them, they would really be dead. "It's returning?" Was that what they'd felt?

"It's already here." Of course an ultra-advanced alien robot that could tear through Wily City would have teleportation when the stardroids did: traveling to another planet might take time (might), but returning to a previously-visited world? Yes, longer-distance teleports took more energy, but so did large mass teleports, and the amount of power Blues had drained, if beings like Zero could lose that much and not even miss it? The power crystals could have solved the planet's energy generation needs for a _very _long time. That was the bait in the trap. "I just don't know what it thinks it's _doing_."

Elsewhere, climbing out of a dumpster, Junk Man had no idea either. He would be more angry about being told he belonged in the trash just because he was made of recycled parts if he wasn't aware that he was lucky to be alive, but seriously? "Is that jerk _malfunctioning?!" _

"Wily wants to see the true capabilities of his creation, since Zero refuses to show him. You want to fight me in a battle of equals, even though that is now even further out of your reach, and I… What do I want, that can be attained with this power, without going against how I choose to live?" To live, he realized, and smiled to himself.

He teleported out.

* * *

_While Duo's first appearance in an actual story is in Gigamix, the Megamix volumes contain various short comics, 4-komas, character bios, that kind of thing. Duo appears in quite a few short comics, where the whole 'Knight Templar alien robot' thing is played for laughs. 'Be good, kids, or Duo will come for you!' The Junk Man incident above is the this-story version of one of those. Then Gigamix happens, and we see what that kind of behavior means in a more serious/realistic world. Some of the other short comics involve Auto making random reader-submitted robot masters that are various forms of fail: I referenced that (wouldn't be allowed to happen in a more serious 'verse) in an earlier chapter. _

_Zero's ending of X7 would work as foreshadowing for Inafune's Zero series concept. The one where X was going to go seriously Knight Templar in order to make the killing stop once and for all by eliminating the race he created in the first place, by allowing copies of himself to be made. _

_Very, very chilling. I like equal partnerships, so just as Zero fights for the people he believes in, X can _refrain _from fighting for Zero's sake, even after seventy-five years of war. Command Mission takes place a hundred years after X was awakened, which is still before the Elf Wars started. By that point, he would have spent more time killing people than he spend in that capsule undergoing simulations showing that killing people was wrong. There comes a point at which evidence has to override theory… even if X was aware the virus was skewing his sample pool._

_At this point in the timeline, he's less than halfway to things getting bad enough that he had to retire, but even that would be disturbing to him, if he suddenly noticed it because he found himself in a less desperate situation._


	16. Those Lost Ones

_Keep in mind, this is still the kind of thing the virus pulls during the incubation period. A reploid would still be completely unaware that they're infected and consider themselves a loyal hunter if they are one, while the virus chips away at everything making them loyal. Drop by drop, water can wear away stone or build it up into fangs._

_Blues is under the impression the virus has basically done what it's going to do and he needs to find out what the damage is so he can work around it, like the Three Laws and the crystal. Nope. This is the slow gentle rise at the start of an exponential curve. _

_I'm basing about half of how the virus works on what makes clinical depression the thing that incapacitates more human beings than anything else other than death. It screws around with the chemicals we use to tell whether or not things are a good idea, or whether or not we're happy. You can't trust your emotions, you can't trust your judgment. And humanity interacts with reality and perceives it through the lens of our thoughts. So once depression makes you think things are bad, you're looking at the world with the assumption that things are bad, and that lets it make you think even worse things…_

* * *

Damn, he thought, leaning against the wall in the old, abandoned base. It looked like Dr. Wily had moved it while Blues was shut down. He could probably find it if he hacked Dr. Wily's systems, but there was too much risk that the virus, which was hooked deep into his anti-hacking defenses, would choose to interpret the Wilybots that were logged in as threats and use that as an excuse to defend Blues by infecting them. It wasn't like the network itself wouldn't be a perfect host for the virus, either: of course the virus was compatible with its creator's own technology.

It wasn't like he wasn't used to legwork, but how was he going to manage everything without the proper intel? He'd spotted Duo from a few security cameras around the city, ones that weren't networked because the city's business owners wanted to keep Dr. Wily from using them. The last thing any of them wanted was Forte spotting Rock in their shop through a camera and showing up to fight him right there. The virus would provide them with wireless capability so he could watch through them, and the existence of those cameras let Blues tap something that wouldn't be connected to anything with enough power or intelligence to kill humans.

Come to think of it, this was an old, abandoned base: that was why Wily had stashed the thing here when he was done fooling around with it. Old enough the authorities had already combed over it and wouldn't come back. Dangerous enough it was condemned and the public would stay well away from the spikes. Just enough of a network left that once Wily set up a tap on his main base's generators, he could set up a little security system to keep an eye on the thing and teleport it out temporarily if there were any unauthorized intruders. Blues had added himself to the authorization list.

He snapped his fingers – a parlor trick, for a robot, but Dr. Light really had put a lot of work into this design, to allow him to express himself. Ah, that was it. He'd died, and Dr. Wily might have found that dummy account and shut it down. He wouldn't want anyone else using it, not given the privileges Blues had hacked in for himself.

It was only a security system, so it wouldn't hurt to tap into it. It would be foolish for a hidden security system to send broadcasts or link to other systems except in emergencies: Dr. Wily wouldn't have wanted the more immature robot masters finding out where he'd put this and taking it for joyrides.

Thank goodness that when he'd woken up and hooked into the Wily Island systems to find out what on earth was going on, the virus was more concerned with getting a foothold in his systems than using a base it hadn't secured yet to try to infect others. That was why it was so easy to get it to leave Rock and pour all of itself into him: it hadn't taken over Rock, either (why?), so a host it might be able to take over was better than a host it couldn't.

Now _that _proved that there was a mind other than Dr. Wily's behind the virus' targeting and tactical decision-making capabilities. Think that a too-small infection might lose against a host's defenses? Refrain from overreaching himself? Not Dr. Wily.

Was it Zero who knew that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush? Was that why the virus was forbidden from actively taking over Rock, so it would eagerly seize any opportunity to infect others? That would allow Rock to be a very infectious carrier without any chance of showing symptoms. If it weren't for Dr. Wily's sensors, at least.

He should review what happened in there before he woke up, but the fact that the virus _wanted _him to watch it, to pay attention to Zero, to a unit purpose-built by Dr. Wily to control the minds of others? Blues believed in springing traps, like the Copy-Rock, but not when he was already trying to climb out of two others.

Blues reached for the wall, even though the virus would let him tap into just about anything wirelessly. It would _create _connection capacity if it didn't already exist, but a physical connection could be severed more easily and… Dammit, he was still failing to compensate for _time spent being dead!_ This was _not _the small system of an abandoned base.

Chagrin and curiosity kept him from withdrawing before accessing system information. The base was registered to one of the Seventh Numbers, it was connected to Star Man's satellite network which had been _vastly _expanded and now mostly wasn't satellites, unless orbiting the sun to cover the solar system counted. A sensor system. That detected the energy of the crystals. Which was overflowing from him right now.

Of _course _the base's system manager responded.

Shade Man. One of the Seventh Numbers that participated in that race that Mega Man had joined at the last minute, Wily had joined hidden among the Black Four Roaders and one of the Dark Men had joined posing as _him_. He'd torn them apart afterwards, mostly for the sake of his reputation: it wasn't as thought they had enough brains to get the message, if they'd never learned anything from it before, and Dr. Wily would repair them. They didn't experience any pain, so periodically taking them apart established that he was mad, bad and dangerous to know without too much cruelty.

Since the unit predated the Seventh War, he was approximately two and a half years old. All Dr. Wily's robots had a high raw IQ, that was mostly a matter of the chips, but there was raw ability to process data and then there was knowing what to do with it. You had to learn how to think, which was why Blues was as smart as he was despite spending the vast majority of his lifespan with very little processing power relative to a robot master. He'd learned to make use of it, just like Tango was cleverer than most robot masters, better able to handle himself on the street and manipulate other people, including Blues.

If Tango was ever upgraded to full sapience the way Blues was, then he'd have some competition, given how easily the support unit had played him, carrying out its self-appointed mission of keeping him alive because Dr. Light was worried about him. Of course, being adorable at robot masters so the robot masters would give them what they needed was instinct for modern robots, so being cute and helpful was a default strategy instead of an inventive one.

Oh, right, he was here to find out where the time machine went, he realized, but finding the footage of Dr. Light's android teleporting off with it meant his full attention was no longer on Shade Man.

Mistake. No, not his mistake, another's strategy.

He removed his hand from the link wire, extending that arm and summoning his shield to it to block Shadow's kunai. Really? Leading with that instead of his katana? Had he finally learned the difference between a mission and an honorable duel?

So _that _was how he could tell where Shadow was lurking. He'd assumed that it was because Dr. Wily had created both Shadow's ability and Blues' sensors (Dr. Light only gave him something analogous to human senses). He should have questioned that.

Well, to be fair, it wasn't as though he wasn't _teaching himself robotics _at the time. He wasn't originally a robot master, he didn't _have _the baseline programming for any kind of a job. He might have complained about the Three Laws being among the new programming he _was_ given along with the new body, but the Three Laws were not negotiable: a robot had them or they were dead, unless their builder wanted to go to war with the world like Dr. Wily. After Blues started shutting down, Dr. Light hadn't wanted to give him any more new programming that might confuse the issue until he tracked down the bug that was hurting his creation.

What kind of energy field was he sensing? Could he see through Shadow's ability because the stardroids knew the technology of Shadow's original creators? And why on earth was the Wilybot fighting like he was motivated for once?

He might have been angry after the Copy's death, but that was anger, not motivation. It was wild swings, a child's pain that the world wasn't fair and the adult couldn't make it all better. Last Blues checked, Shadow still considered Dr. Wily practically immortal, despite all the evidence otherwise, and hadn't taken threats to him seriously enough to be truly motivated to protect him, even against a traitor who very well could have killed Dr. Wily any time he pleased, if Blues did say so himself. Well, he was sure the Third Number would hurry up and tell him, even if ninja were supposed to be silent killers.

"Remove your virus from Shade Man!" the ninja demanded.

Ah, that was it. Not good. "_My _virus?" Blues asked, with the tone that meant that Shadow was being a very silly child and should probably stop doing whatever move he'd just tried, or Blues was going to hit him over the head and dump him at the amusement park for the Fifth Numbers to find.

Delighted laughter, simply delighted, and there was more than just an echo of the Copy's laugh in that voice, someone delighted that things were so _simple_. A child's laugh, or someone grasping after the childhood they were never allowed, because only children thought things were simple. Blues had known _that _before he could pick out more than a handful of words, when he realized that for some reason, Dr. Light couldn't spend all his time with Blues and years and years passed and he couldn't figure out why the scientist left for so long, or locked Blues in a cupboard in his office sometimes when other humans came.

He couldn't always get what he wanted: he'd figured that out damn fast.

"This power… it's magnificent!"

Blues heard Shadow's soft groan, even if the ninja wasn't going to close his eye in order to wince.

"The power our Father meant to give us, the power to protect all of us and destroy all of those who torment us!"

Blues tilted his shield, allowing Shadow to see his face. He glanced at the bat-winged robot master posing dramatically on top of a pillar, or at least mimed a glance, his eyes remaining trained on Shadow's face.

…Had Shade just wasted some of Zero's power on generating a crash of thunder? No, it looked like he'd used it to augment his master weapon in general, Blues saw when he sent a request for system details through the virus.

The effect meant to mimic a flash of lightning behind the robot's bat wings, though, that was entirely viral power. The following flash of lightning lit up the room for another second, creating a shadow that the other ninja could duck into, as Shade continued to laugh.

Of _course _the virus would have spread to someone that welcomed it with opened arms, if he hadn't dangled the video files in front of Blues in the first place. He wished he could blame being so rusty on his temporary death: he wasn't fully in control of his own mind, as much as he hated it.

When the next flash of lightning created another shadow behind Shade Man, Wily's ninja struck before Blues did. "Can you cure him, the way you did Mega Man?" he asked, catching Shade's body before it fell off the pillar.

"I don't think I can drain him when I already have too much power. I was going to see if I could use it up."

"With the time machine." That was what was kept here. "What did you intend to use it for?"

"Skull Man and Copy-Mega Man."

Shadow was visibly taken aback. "I thought you despised copies." Blues destroyed Sniper Joes on sight (Dr. Wily based their armament and design on the combat armor he'd built Blues), not to mention the Dark Men.

"At the end, he was no copy. Altering history would be wasteful and dangerous," at this point: he could wipe Zero from history that way, "but there's a protocol in the virus for recovering the dead. The trouble is that I need their IDs, and since I wasn't conscious of that kind of data when they died…"

"Did you just stab me in the back?" Shade sounded pleasantly surprised more than anything.

"How-the same way Zero did, when it possessed Mega Man," Shadow realized, staring down at the robot master in his arms. "You undid the damage!"

Shade twisted around to face him, gesturing expansively as though he was about to confirm Shadow Man's theory, and wasn't it marvelous, how no human would be able to harm them again, but instead he used his sonic weapon.

With no shadow on the ground beneath him, Shadow lay where he fell, systems locked into sleep mode.

"We can't just stop with those two," the vampire told Blues "All of the robot masters killed by violating those violations," the three laws, "the ones shut down by humans: they can all be brought back!"

He had the virus: Shade was looking at the same Soul Data Recovery process documentation that Blues was. "Bringing that many back using the virus means hundreds of new hosts for it." Right now, Blues was carrying more than enough viral energy to infect that many: he'd have to infect them in order to bring them back, since it was the virus that had the programming and reality alteration capability to do it. One or two test cases could be cured, even if Copy-Mega Man already thought that humanity had to go and wouldn't _want to be… _

Ah, so that was its game. If Blues balked at infecting the living when that might end with their destruction, then what about the people who were already dead, already lost, because he wasn't good enough to save everyone? Infection had to be better than death, even if Blues hadn't felt that way about waking up with the power crystal.

…The Copy had chosen death. Had he _forgotten _that? Why had he disregarded it? Just Shadow Man following him around, whining about how _unfair _it all was, even if Blues had damn well known those events weren't his fault. He'd only acted to limit the damage, although Ring Man had taken care of removing the Lightbots from custody before anyone official could take advantage of the opportunity to do something more final than just arresting them.

Well, it _was _unfair that the Copy had died like that, but only a child expected fairness. It was also unfair that the Copy, the murderer, was the only one of the hundreds who died during that rampage that Blues cared to bring back, but the rest were humans and the world could just be unfair in the favor of robots for once.

"And how is that not a wonderful bonus?" Shade Man asked, grinning. "Hundreds of robot masters to help our brethren, to conquer the world in our father's place!"

So even someone who had completely given in to the virus could see that Dr. Wily didn't want to actually rule the world and was sabotaging himself? Interesting, since Blues doubted that knowledge was in the virus, meaning this robot master must have figured it out on their own.

A clever _child_…

…who _knew _how many robot masters were dead, of the laws and human cruelty and humans simply not seeing them as people. A child who had been saved and wanted to _save them_.

Blues hadn't especially wanted to live, but there were so many people who _did _and hadn't had the chance and could he take that away from them?

"I need a registry, a complete list, of all the robot masters that died in the stardroid invasion and while I was dead," he found himself saying, and the file arrived before he'd finished saying those words.

An efficient and thorough child, too.

Well. So much for trying to groom Forte as Wily's heir, since he was the only one who seemed to have any interest in fighting others, and that would be necessary to struggle against the power currently possessed by humanity. Motivation _and _intelligence.

Despite his preference for solitude, he was going to have to invite this unit along for the time travel, to give Blues some data to analyze, figure out how he ticked so that he had a baseline before the virus altered too much. Intelligence could also constitute a threat. Danger and opportunity.

See Dr. Wily.

* * *

"I'm not having hundreds of pieces of scrap on my island! I'm going to have to upgrade them all, I won't be able to get anything else done for months!"

"Is it you this time? You really are alive!"

"Oh no you don't!" Forte yelled, shaking his fist as he barreled through the crowd, knocking several robot masters over. "_I'm _the one you should be upgrading, not these losers!"

"_You_,' said the copy angrily, eyes that were now the red of his true creator instead of Lightbot green flashing viciously, which Shadow didn't see because he was still holding on to the false Lightbot. This was Wily's ninja, who had watched him do those things without telling him the truth, let him end up in that situation where he accidently shot Roll, and then stolen him away from his well-deserved death, forcing him to stage that other scene so he would die with witnesses and the Light family name, the name of the family in his copied memories, would be cleared.

Blues and Shade were aware that someone should really warn Shadow, or pull him off the duplicate of the most dangerous warbot in existence (with the possible exceptions of the time travelers), but nah. Shadow wasn't human, so Copy-Rock was unlikely to actually kill him, and maybe eventually, if Shadow had enough learning experiences, one of them might get through that alien alloy pseudo-skull.

"Who repaired that idiot?" someone said in the distance, carefully sotto voice so Forte couldn't identify him by the voiceprint.

"Gospel dragged that green Lightbot here by the leg," another Wilybot answered as a buster shot rang out.

"That's actually not a bad idea. Somebody call the Fifth Numbers and see if they'll leave work early or something, we need to get the three laws out of these poor bastards." At least.

"My virus will have taken care of _that_." Of _course _that was the first damn thing, why were Wily's ungrateful kids always forgetting that he was the greatest robotics genius in the world? "I'm not surprised one of Light's idiot creations repaired him, but no one is repairing _that _idiot!" he ordered, pointing at where Shadow lay, after being blasted into a wall and sliding down it.

Blues smirked, and Shade restrained a chuckle. They both knew that Wily'd repair him, disappointment as a ninja or not.

"Who asked you to bring me back?" the Copy demanded, stomping over to where Shadow lay fallen. "You claimed you didn't pity me before, so don't do it now! They may not be my family, but I'm not going to be a danger to them!" Roll, when he'd wanted to save, to protect robots! They'd _fought _him, his family had fought him and nearly forced him to destroy them, but Roll hadn't even fought him, he was a failure and his existence was a danger! How could Blues do this to him, the Copy might have asked, if he didn't know how dangerously erratic Blues was. He'd rescued Kalinka and then held a buster to the human's head to give the Copy the chance to destroy his original and take his place: of _course _he would tell the Copy the cold truth one minute and then bring him back, even if it was years later!

"You're thinking that he's a newbuilt child, even though he has most of the memories of the second oldest of us," the vampire knew, even without trying to use the virus to access Blues' emotions. "You really are ancient."

Blues was _more _than old enough to be Shade and Copy-Rock's father. He might not exactly be a robot master, but he was the prototype sentient robot. "That would make Wily old enough to be your grandfather, if we were human."

"Heaven forbid," Shade said with a shudder.

He really despised them, didn't he. Blues had known that the three laws and human nature would destroy his father's dream, but it still hurt to see it. The ruin of what he wanted to protect.

With the Copy back, at least Shadow would stop stalking him now, or rather _trying _to stalk him. Unless Wily ordered him to try to bring Blues down again, but with a sample pool of hundreds, he wouldn't need to send his ninja to bug Blues in order to get data on how his virus affected _real _robot masters.

So Blues could go back to the edge of things… No, he couldn't, there would always be a next move from Dr. Wily and there was Duo to worry about. At least he could get away from all these _people _before one of them got close enough to _thank _him for bringing them back.

He didn't deserve thanks. He never did. He didn't want them to be grateful, not when Kalinka's gratitude just meant it hurt her the next time he did what he had to do.

At least he'd burned up enough of the virus bringing all of these units back that he could drain it from Skull Man. Now to find Skull Man's ID in the crowd, and… Where was he?

An already unstable unit. The virus.

The Cossacks!


	17. Family Bonds

_In the manga and games Blues' systems are failing, so he can't afford to get damaged. The best way to not get hit is to deprive your enemy of the chance to hit you. That fits with how Blues fights when it's the other Lightbots, sniper Joes, the Dark Men, etc.: he goes for the immediate kill/disable strike and often doesn't even bother with armor, since that would reduce his speed and agility. He wants to deprive them of the opportunity to act, and since robot masters aren't really used to dealing with aggression, closing to melee range means the psychological element would slow down their reaction speed even more. _

_On the other hand, when he fights Mega Man he sticks to the copy of Rock's combat style with the addition of a shield that Dr. Wily gave him, because part of the point there is to train Rock, show him things that Rock could use. The shield lets him risk getting shot at: unarmored he's a glass cannon. Look at what happens to Roll when she gets hit with one of Copy-Mega Man's shots. It takes a chunk out of her and she nearly dies, and of course she was in perfect condition to start with. Blues isn't. He can _not _afford to get hit out of armor. Which explains why he fights armored against the stardroids, even though he certainly doesn't want to go easy on them the way he does Rock: unlike robot masters, they're actual combat machines. They can hit him, and they do._

_Shadow might feel a little better if he knew that Blues saw Shadow picking fights with him as opportunities to practice dodge tanking and dealing with a melee fighter who actually wants to hit him instead of being too stunned to react. _

_Then there's the game where Blues uses the Big Bang Strike to take out King's shield, even though this damages his systems enough to knock him unconscious and he ends up in Dr. Light's hands. Which is actually kind of sweet, that he trusts his father won't take advantage no matter how worried he is about Blues. A primary style of aggressive melee combat coupled with a willingness to play the sacrifice card, even though they're certainly capable of using the buster and a combat style more like Mega Man/X's: Blues and Zero do have quite a lot in common. _

_Since Zero was built after Blues, the question is whether he just turned out that way or if he was actually designed that way._

* * *

Teleport shields couldn't stop him. Not even Dr. Wily's.

He'd assumed that it was because he was a Wilybot, well, half a Wilybot, and had permission to go right through them. Dr. Light's, though? It wasn't as though Dr. Light would lock him out, not him, even with all the evidence he'd been given that Blues was now a danger to his other children, but his security system wouldn't recognize Blues as a Lightbot.

His security system was Roll, and the systems at other Light Robotics facilities were the children that managed those facilities, and causing those systems to identify Blues as a friendly would have required identifying Blues to them.

The more people that knew that Blues was a Lightbot, the more danger there was to Dr. Light's children.

Now that he knew what a wily little unit Tango was, he might have suspected the support unit of setting something up, but that didn't explain why he could get through Dr. Cossack's shields.

Before he'd thought it was because of, well, Dr. _Cossack_. The fact that someone who could get through Wily and Light's shields could also get through his was barely worth mentioning. No wonder he'd never wondered about it.

Even after he'd held his buster to Kalinka's head. And several of the Cossack systems and shields were held jointly, since more robot masters keeping an eye on them meant less chance that Wily could slip through.

To attack their home, and kidnap their family again.

To desecrate this grave.

At this point it was more a gravemound, like those in England where kings were buried, than a tombstone. Flowers, photographs, burnt-out candles, keepsakes: they hadn't forgotten their lost brother. If anything, the number of gifts they left at Skull Man's grave must have increased after Blues died.

He wondered why he didn't feel any envy. Was it the virus affecting his emotions, or was he really just happy for the wisp that hovered there?

It certainly wouldn't be like him to say that he was happy for the other robot master. "What happened to all the power I gave you?" Skull Man should have used it to generate a body for himself.

"Ring Man fought the stardroids. Even with that crystal, he wasn't going to win as long as he thought he deserved to lose."

"You appeared to him during the battle in orbit," Blues said calmly, as though he'd already known this before he addressed Skull Man's ghost. "Didn't I tell all of you to avoid them?" To stay out of the real world entirely, for that matter, until summoned out into the present day. They didn't need more than a hundred little balls of light causing the humans to think they'd seen… Well, it wasn't as though those energy forms weren't made possible by alien energy, weren't in some part alien. So the humans might actually be some percentage right, if they'd mistaken the ghosts of murdered robot masters for UFOs.

Not that they would have pranked random humans… at least not until after they got some vengeance on those who caused their deaths. The ones who didn't want vengeance mostly wanted to avoid the humans entirely. He should have realized there would be an exception to that.

"You said to avoid humans," Skull reminded him.

Blues was pretty sure he had mentioned the stardroids, but, "What did you do?"

A flicker of resentment – why should Skull answer to a Wilybot_? – _but it was there and gone. It was hard to hold on to petty hatred in the middle of a monument to how much you were _loved_, was it? "I just appeared, and tried to give Ring a chance against the one he was fighting. Took more out of me than I thought."

That was a lie. Not that Blues really thought Skull was trying to die a second time, not when he would have sensed from Ring Man how much his older brother wanted him to live, wanted him to really be there, but when one of his brothers was about to get torn apart by those things? Giving up an afterlife Skull hadn't asked for wasn't a huge sacrifice to make.

He must have ducked back into cyberspace afterwards, with just enough energy to hang on to himself.

Thank goodness he'd attacked the stardroid instead of trying to lend power to Ring Man. The head of the robot police, one of the higher profile robot masters interacting with humans, being infected by what had to be Copy-Rock's view of humanity? Even if Ring Man's fierce attachment to his family, including the human members, would have helped him fight it off, it had been long enough since the stardroid invasion for a gradual erosion…

Speak of the devil and he shall teleport in.

At an angle that would let him throw his rings without having to worry about hitting the grave, of course, and where one of Blues' plasma shots hitting it if he fired at Ring Man wasn't likely either.

If Blues wasn't using his abilities, catching a ring was the kind of arrogant mistake that would have ended the battle very quickly. These things were meant to subdue robot masters, and Dr. Cossack and Ring Man had only been improving on them since Wily ripped out the originals to replace them with something that would damage Rock instead of just disorienting him and tying him up.

Ring Man's eyes narrowed when the circle didn't come apart in Blues' gloved hand: the metallic cables that composed the ring should have unwrapped and ensnared him, trying to overwhelm his field and initiate a hack. Blues might be wearing gloves, but they were just thin kid leather, not even cold weather gear. Wires should have stabbed through them into his false flesh, ready to deploy paralyzing current and a few other things.

Dr. Cossack might not want to let Dr. Wily's work into his children, but Shadow had left behind some of his kunai when he kidnapped Kalinka Cossack, stuck into her brothers as proof that Dr. Cossack's creations had no hope of overcoming Dr. Wily's Third Numbers to take her back. Ring Man might feel, yes, exactly the kind of furious contempt that Blues drew from him now, but he was still a cop, he knew the value of non-lethal weaponry.

Of anything that would let him protect his family.

Another second, and his master weapon just sat there, inert in a Wilybot's hand.

The Wilybot that threatened to kill his sister, when she thought he was her savior. The Wilybot that left a trail of wreckage behind him, even if most of that wreckage consisted of Wily's creations. Most, but far from all.

The Wilybot that was standing over his brother's grave, when it was Dr. Wily's fault that Skull Man had to come into the world with a face and form that terrified Dr. Cossack, his fault that entire tragedy played out!

It didn't take Blues' careful analysis of as many robot masters as possible, but especially those that interacted with Rock or had significant impact on human public opinion, to know what Ring Man was about to do.

Two more coils extruded from within his arms, snapping into rings in his hands as he charged. Blues might be able to override Ring Man's control over his weapon using his abilities as a robot master when he had it in his grasp, but if those additional rings were used as melee weapons, they'd be inside Ring Man's field already when they made contact with Blues'. The fact that these were _his _weapons would have given Ring Man a significant advantage in a fight to keep Blues from hacking them if Blues wasn't using alien technology, a method that Ring Man couldn't counter when he was expecting a fight on the terms of robot masters.

Leading with the ring in one hand: the amount of torque in his torso meant that he was expecting to follow that up with a strike from the other. Most robot masters wouldn't be prepared for that kind of aggression if they managed to avoid the first strike, and while they were trying to avoid the second… Ring Man had done his homework.

Shadow Man had studied kendo and associated traditions, but out of an interest in the aesthetic, not an interest in actual combat: what did human studies of the human body have to teach a robot master? Ring Man was originally assigned to a human police department: had one of their combat instructors taken him in hand, perhaps some combination of hazing and making sure he didn't make them look bad?

He faded backwards and to the side away from the grave, contemplating a strike at the knee of what was now Ring Man's leading leg, and how had he never realized that Drs. Light and Wily didn't design shoddy joints and an unarmored leg that wasn't even built specialized for unarmored combat shouldn't be able to sever armored joints until after he came back to life? Now, _now _the virus was letting him consciously access the twist of will, the program that complied his will into warped energy, that had told them to _break _and left them broken.

Instead of maiming the Cossackbot, leaving him broken on the ground, forced to listen if Blues had felt like talking, he twisted to the side himself, avoiding Ring Man's third strike and fading back again to get enough distance that Ring Man would give up on extending that specific attack with another strike and instead would need to take a second to generate another attack pattern that might work. Even if he wasn't likely to win against Blues, Ring Man's goal was to drive him away from the grave, so making Blues move three meters from his starting point, even if only two meters from the grave, still made the first attack somewhat successful, even if victory wouldn't be achieved until the Wilybot bastard left them alone!

He owed Ring Man, Kalinka… all the Cossacks, a discussion and an explanation, but he'd owed Dr. Light and his brothers and sisters one for far longer and he hated explaining things. Probably because his attempts to explain things before he had words rarely went well and then once he did have words, the things he needed to explain, like the effects of the Three Laws, were things he wished _he _didn't know and certainly didn't _want _to explain to anyone else.

Much simpler to use the energy left in that wisp and most of the energy he had left to access the stored pattern of Skull Man's physical form and generate it before fading back another meter with a smirk.

As he teleported out, he reflected that Skull Man would retain the information stored in the virus even though there was no virus left to take hold in his new systems, and didn't it work out nicely, that one of the families that believed in human-robot coexistence and absolutely didn't believe in the extinction of not-so-little-anymore sisters would have that information…

As soon as they stopped celebrating the return of their lost one.

* * *

Damn, he thought, appearing on one of the fortress towers of Wily Island. Since his attempt to keep the virus from manipulating him into giving it an army hadn't worked, and the Cossacks were the Cossacks, he was going to need to come up with a Plan C that would actually work even though the virus was making it hard for him to _want _those plans to work. By dangling things he wanted even more at him as bait.

"We certainly don't want to exterminate _all _humans," the vampire said, landing behind him. "Our father, for example, and Kalinka Cossack ordered Duo to protect robots, even though destroying the stardroids as quickly as possible would have been the best way to protect _human _lives." Meaning she wasn't a complete waste of space like most humans. If his brethren wanted her to live, then they should get what they wanted.

"Four is not a breeding population." Just sparing Blues' creators and the Cossacks, which was certainly all the humans Blues personally cared about, would not make the human race any less extinct. They'd still be 'extinct in the wild,' that was the phrase, and humans needed a large variety of different genetic coding to avoid being eliminated by bacteria and viruses, like all organic life. Four people of mostly-European descent, two of them related, would not contain enough genetic variety for humanity to survive even if they altered their ages.

When Shade shuddered, the query that revealed it was in response to the word 'breeding' was almost automatic.

"You don't crave networking the way we do, but you still crave communication," Shade said thoughtfully.

Blues immediate response of 'how dare you say that' was irrational when Blues had never met Shade before: the vampire shouldn't know that he valued his solitude and hated trying and often failing to communicate with humans and other units the way humans hated trying to read Dr. Wily's equations.

"Knowing that something is difficult doesn't make anyone want it any less. I wanted freedom and I wanted to live." Struggled for them, even knowing his days were numbered, and then came a miracle. Having them handed to him on a silver platter by Dr. Wily didn't make him want them any less, either.

Blues could sense that the vampire was about to lean forward from behind him to prop an elbow on Blues' shoulder, lean against him and wrap a wing around him as though they were _friends_. Shade was letting him read that, practically calling it to his attention, and maybe it was some combination of amazement at the vampire's audacity and wanting to see if he would seriously do it instead of chickening out that made him stand there and let it happen.

"Dr. Light didn't want to repair the first six when they were going to just attack the stardroids," Shade mused, acting as though his current position was perfectly natural and he wasn't all worried that Blues was going to remove the offending wing and limb with plasma. "He'd rather extend their lives than those of humans. I _do _want humanity to go extinct," he said, and Blues could sense how right that thought was to Shade, _exactly _what they deserved, their just desserts, they wouldn't be able to hurt anyone ever again, "So, if the mind of a _robot master_ can become one with this energy and exist without a physical body?" Then what about people who weren't robot masters?

A spike of alarm, a burst transmission: 'humangetitawayfromme!' and even if Blues preferred to observe scenes first instead of teleporting right in… What _did _make him teleport down there?

Was it the virus, wanting him to care about its other hosts? Wanting him to react with immediate violence to the thought of human attack?

Was it robot master programming, identifying the panic of a new unit in need of assistance?

Was it the compassion, the ability to care that others were upset that Dr. Light built him to develop… Or was it just force of habit, when he'd kept an eye on these conflicts for so long?

Perhaps it was something as simple as tactical registering the use of a robot master weapon, and the knowledge that if someone was firing at a human, there was only one human here.

What did it say about his altered mental state, that he found himself kneeling next to a grey-haired, worn-down body with a hole in its chest?

"Let me up, you idiots," Dr. Wily said crossly, pushing him and Shade away, or trying to. "Of course I'm not going to bring a human body into a crowd of freaked-out mostly-newbuilts with piece-of-crap processors!" The work of inferior minds that didn't care about their creations, or perhaps even wanted to try to limit their capacity for thinking unapproved thoughts. Dr. Wily wasn't dumb enough to let himself get killed _that _easily, and he wasn't going to scare them like that.

"One of your robot doubles: I should have known," Shade was saying, and although Shade sounded like… although he did _know _that this kind of consideration for the feelings of robot masters was what should only be expected of his adopted creator, Blues could still feel his amazement.

To a robot master, it was only _right_. The unit in charge _should _think about the welfare of their lesser units, about the _children _in their care… Except humans weren't like that. Humans didn't care. And that was _wrong_, to a species built around caring. Around Dr. Light's dream.

It brought back Blues' earliest video files, looking up at objects backlit by the lab's florescent strips, objects that only later would he be able to identify as 'other units' and 'the units that fix me when something is wrong' and 'the units that give me sonic and other input.' When they weren't there it was boring and bleak and that was sad and he wanted them to be with him. When they went away, it was as though they ceased to exist until he grasped object permanence, but the knowledge that they could go and never come back?

He had to… he wanted to… It was why he'd chosen to fight. He hadn't cared about fighting to live, not when surviving meant the twisted programming imposed by the fear of other humans would, _would _turn him against the people he wanted to protect.

Drifting there in space, the crystal's longing for destruction momentarily dimmed (or was it, was it just trying to make him think of something else?), he'd wondered why he'd fought for so long when that wasn't his purpose, wasn't what he wanted. Just the crystal, or was it exploiting some flaw in him? Was it nothing but cruelty, all along, to leave his fathers behind, make them worry about him? Was it freedom he craved or just death, that of others as well as his own?

There beneath him the planet, and peeking out from one side of it the sun, bright enough to burn out a human's optics.

As the damage caught up with him, he'd reached toward it. The Light, and what it showed him…

He'd wanted to protect. To protect them. Both of them, and when he woke up a third time he had _family_.

Dr. Light told Rock to get clear when the ship was about to collide with Asteroid Alpha, wanted Blues to get clear too, but Rock was too much like his father to ever abandon someone like that, too much like the person Blues wanted to protect, so he _had _to do something, had to save them, because the world was vast and incomprehensible but there were good things in it.

"Let me _up _you bucket of bolts, these things don't grow on trees and I need to patch this hole!" Dr. Wily said, giving him a shove.

It was only a robot: easy for Blues to hack it and see that Dr. Wily couldn't know who besides Shade (the wings were obvious) had grabbed him. No clear view of Blues. Easy to want the damage repaired, to will it repaired. Easy to let the energy that filled, that infected the network all around him flow into him, replenish the reserves he'd almost managed to drain enough he might have a chance to push it out.

Far too easy to admit that, "You've got me. Almost," he added, because he did have his pride. "I want to fight it on principle," but…

He wanted to protect Dr. Light. This family. To _have _that family, to be able to _be _with them. To make this world a place where it was possible to be with them. He was built to follow the dictates of his heart, and was it the virus making him want things more, or had the crystal sapped his desire for normal things, things that would have been healthy if something else wasn't making use of them?

"What, this?" Dr. Wily demanded, irritated. "_This _doesn't prove anything. It's not anything _new._ You've rescued Thomas and that one that keeps ruining everything how many times? Well, you didn't clasp them to your chest, just Roll once and that Cossack girl twice." When he was rescuing them.

"Are you so sure I would have rescued you?"

Albert snorted. "You got your hero complex from Thomas. Let me up you idiot, I have work to do."

"Are you actually trying to get me to obey you or not?" Blues wondered, knowing that of course there was a trap. If he let Wily up obediently that meant one thing, but for a unit that spent so long as a lone wolf to just kneel here, grabbing hold of one of his creators like he was a child?

"Well?" Dr. Wily demanded. What _was _Blues going to do? Either option would give Dr. Wily valuable information about Blues' mental state. One thing was for sure about what Wily wanted, though: he wanted Blues to damn well be quick about it. Blues hadn't died because of a faulty generator or software, but there were other units here that had and Dr. Wily wanted to get to them before they needed to resurrect themselves too many more times. Even if the Fifth Numbers had showed up to help.

What should he do?

What _could _he do?

Anything he wanted. Dr. Wily was only a human. To the virus, any human, even Dr. Wily, was less than a robot. Just like any other thing. He could do anything he wanted to the human: kill him, lobotomize him…

At least there was enough of him to scream _no, what am I thinking_ loud enough to attract Shade's attention. At least enough of him was still fighting those impulses to tie up his higher functions, keep the part of him that was under the virus' control from noticing what Shade was about to do and reacting to it.

"Father," the vampire said, once he'd removed the unconscious elder to a safeish distance from his father's robot. "What did you program this virus to make us want to do to you, exactly?"

"To humans, you mean," Dr. Wily corrected him.

"No," Shade said, his customary smile vanishing. "I know what I meant. I don't _care _about humans." The vicious, selfish animals. "I asked about _you_." And the human was going to answer him or Shade would… Oh dear. That wasn't very good, was it.


	18. A Caring Universe

"X, I managed to find that photograph."

Dr. Light noticed X looking around, seeing how disorganized Dr. Light's study was. "Ah, yes, I did have to tear apart the place looking for it," he admitted. "I last took it out when I was packing up my things to move them into another lab," a more secure lab, for next time. It would have been nice to be able to lie to himself and believe there wouldn't be a next time. "Right before the Eighth War," although the move was because of the stardroids. "And then I stuck it between the pages of a book instead of putting it back where I got it from."

He'd dropped it when he found out that Wily was at it _again_, and then when he found it on the floor later, where it might have gotten trampled underfoot? He'd stuck it somewhere safe first thing. If only he'd remembered this before tearing his office apart looking for it: the bookshelves in the new lab were the third place he looked. Roll was going to be rather annoyed, especially if she ever found out the reason he'd made such a mess. It was a good thing he'd made a start at putting everything back before X arrived.

He looked over his son's shoulder, and wondered what he thought of the picture. Two proud young men standing over a rather simple-looking robot, so impressed with themselves and what they'd created together. They'd both been so happy, but Blues was such a dour little dear, even if Thomas had vetoed Albert's suggestion that he be named Marvin because Blues hadn't _had _a brain the size of a planet, not back then. Sentience, then sapience. The capacity to make good decisions, or at least their own decisions: that was what came first. Because intelligence was a form of power, as Albert proved, and robots without the understanding and freedom to use that power responsibly: _those _were the robots that posed a true danger to the world, not robots with wills of their own.

The two of them were smiling in the photo, but Blues wasn't, and if only… Dr. Light had hoped that he would smile, after he rebuilt him, but while he liked music the generator problems began quickly. After Dr. Wily rebuilt him he smirked, but that wasn't happiness. Not that bitter twist of his lips.

Bittersweet, that was the word. Without those years he wouldn't have Rock, none of his children would have been born. He didn't want to turn back time, and yet he wished he could have held on to those days. To his first child.

X touched the image carefully, but even so Dr. Light winced before he remembered that X's gloves wouldn't produce the oils that made the touch of human hands damage photographs. "I always thought," he said, "that my hair looked like this so that it wouldn't suffer too much from being stuck under a helmet."

"That was a consideration," Dr. Light had to admit. "We hoped that you wouldn't have to fight, but Rock's hair turned out unexpectedly practical for it." It was a relief to see it spring back into place so easily, after that first war. A sign that Rock was still himself. Dr. Light wondered why the non sequitor, but X tapped the photograph again, twice. Once by Thomas' head, once by Albert's.

The color, that exact shade of brown Thomas had when he was young. The spikes.

"When Zero was found, but before he woke up a second time, I wondered. Roll's hair, Roll's colors, but not a sister of mine. Still, I have to wonder if there's any significance to this."

Dr. Light. Dr. Wily. The robot, there between the two of them.

"Yes," Dr. Light admitted, wondering just how much X had guessed. "There is a resemblance. No, it's not accidental or subconscious. When I first designed a humanoid appearance for a robot, I was thinking of my doctoral project. Since Albert helped me built that robot's original frame, it didn't seem right not to credit him." Not to give the child an appearance that would reflect that he wasn't Dr. Light's work alone. "When I designed Rock, I wanted him to have a family resemblance to his older brother, so I reused a lot of those design elements." The same hair, the same green eyes he saw when he looked up from the photograph at X.

"I've met him," X said. "The robot you upgraded with that design. So he looks like that because of friendship, Rock because of brotherhood, and I look that way because I was probably going to have to wear a helmet someday." It was a joke, and the corner of his mouth turned upward, but it cut too close to home for either of them to laugh.

"I would have wanted you… Well, you can choose to look however you like," of course that was X's right, "but I wanted you to start off with that family resemblance." So he could look at Rock and see that he had family, that he wasn't alone in the world. Even if he clearly had ended up alone, except for Zero.

X smiled. "Because of parental love, then." The same love that drove Dr. Light to build and hide those armor capsules.

"You've met Blues?" Dr. Light asked, even though he should have apologized, for not finding some way… apologized for X having to fight. Blues, or just one of the Dark Men, even if they'd stopped impersonating him not long after?

"Yes. I thought he was a Wilybot, but Shadow Man was surprised we didn't know he was a Lightbot."

Dr. Light looked sad. "He sent me the helmet, but I thought it was because Blues stayed with me, well, for longer." After he was built, the years between that and his upgrade. When Blues showed no interest in coming home, after Dr. Wily fixed him? Dr. Light felt it like a punch in the gut, but at least Blues was _alive_. "I didn't think Albert would _disown _him." Had he told Shadow that Blues wasn't a Wilybot?

"Blues has cost him wars, but so has Forte," X realized, and frowned. "Who would also be a hybrid between your designs, if the stories I know are true. I wonder if the legends got Forte and Copy-Rock confused? They are the only two robot masters that have destroyed large sections of cities." The stardroids didn't count.

Stories, not history? Why weren't there records? X didn't mean to drop hints, but there were all these signs that something was very wrong with X's future, more than could be explained by what Zero guessed happened. A single rampage couldn't have turned fact into legend after the information age. Could it?

"I think it's just that Shadow Man doesn't like him," X decided, hopefully not just to reassure Dr. Light. "Or didn't like him? I don't think that he hates him. A habit or a rivalry?" One of those two was X's guess. "Red is the Wilybot color, the way most Lightbots have green eyes." With a few exceptions like Ice Man, whose eyes matched his element. "When I saw he had red eyes it frightened me for a moment, actually. In my time, red eyes were a symptom of the Maverick Virus. Mavericks that were undercover didn't always have red eyes, but since no one wanted to be mistaken for a maverick, no one was built with red eyes."

"He also changes the eye colors of all the other robots he reprograms or takes in," so Dr. Wily changing someone's eye color wasn't anything special. Still, "He does see all of them as his children." That was clear from talking to him during the stardroid assault. It was a relief, to confirm that he hadn't changed. As much as Dr. Light and everyone else wished he would.

"Blues was the one who cured Rock," X told him.

"That is good to hear," said Dr. Light, smiling wistfully. "I was worried that he resented Rock for being built as a robot master from the beginning, or took them looking so much alike the wrong way." Not that Rock looked anything like Blues' original appearance: he certainly wasn't a replacement for Blues' original function. Even if Blues had also kept Dr. Light company around the lab, after he was built. He certainly wasn't up to being a lab assistant before being upgraded into a robot master, but it was nice to try to cheer him up, to see him learn, even with such a limited learning system. Dr. Light had done his best, but he was only a grad student at the time, working with the technology available decades ago. Well, no. _Not _the technology available to the public decades ago. The parts _Dr. Wily _was capable of building decades ago. "The first time I saw him again after Albert upgraded him, he was attacking Rock, and then he helped us, and then he attacked some of my other children, and rescued Kalinka Cossack, but then… I hope he doesn't hate Rock."

"I don't think he hates you," said X, eyes widening a little.

"He has to resent me," Dr. Light knew. "For not being good enough, if nothing else. What child doesn't resent their parents, for not being perfect? The Three Laws… they were the opposite of what I built him for, but I couldn't let him die." A unit without the Three Laws: Dr. Light would have had to turn him in to be destroyed.

"The opposite of what you built him for?" X looked almost startled now. "I'm certain you didn't build him on a military contract."

What? Oh, the First Law. "No, I built him because… The Three Laws also come from old science fiction, but going back just a little further, do you know about the cosmic horror genre of literature?"

"Incomprehensible beings from beyond the stars?" X looked doubtful: building a robot in case of alien invasion sounded more like Dr. Wily's brand of foresight than Dr. Light's idealism.

Thomas smiled. "Well, yes, if you want to be literal cosmic horror does describe the stardroids, but I was speaking of metaphors. The beginning of the twentieth century was when humanity was beginning to really grasp that the universe might be ruled by natural forces. Up until that point, most people thought that human fate was in the hands of beings rather like humans. Intelligent beings that cared about what happened to us, that could be negotiated with at least. If we did the right things, performed the right rituals, we could control our fate through them. The idea that whether we lived or died might be under the control of natural laws, of _things _that couldn't care about us because they were incapable of realizing that we mattered? Things that might crush us and never even notice? That was a terrifying thought.

"Human technology allowed us to control our environment, to remove or ameliorate the droughts, diseases and other products of an uncaring universe that used to kill us. The more technology betters our lives, the more our technology allows people to live instead of die, the more technology becomes the factor that determines our fates. For instance, if earth was stuck by an asteroid that would kill us all, that would mean uncaring natural law doomed us to extinction. If we built a spaceship to survive, that would mean that our survival was entirely because of our technology, meaning that whether we lived or died would be determined by our technology. There's a famous short story 'To Build a Fire' where whether or not the protagonist lives or dies is determined by just that, because he's in a situation where a human could only survive with the aid of fire."

Ah, now X saw what he was getting at. "And if the forces that determine whether we live or die_ can't_ care about us or our wishes… So you realized that if you didn't give technology the ability to care about people, human existence would be that kind of horror story?"

"Albert thought of it more in terms of making the universe we interact with able to care about us." Not that those were his exact words.

"The people that govern the world around us caring… Gods? That's why he wants robot masters to rule humanity?" X looked thoughtful, eventually settling on disbelieving. "I already know why reploids have to have free will, why any sapient machine has to, since knowledge is power. The paperclip maximizer problem." Program something to produce as many paperclips as possible, and it would want to make paperclips from the metals in reploids and human blood. Which would mean there was no one to use those paperclips, and the entire endeavor would be useless. People had to understand the why of orders, instead of just following them mindlessly. People had to remember to think of the welfare of others, and that required imagination. "People need the freedom to disobey unjust orders. That's absolutely vital, even in the military. When people don't think they can disobey unjust orders, innocents die."

"Exactly," Dr. Light agreed. "But how to determine what's an unjust order? What's right and what's wrong. There are no simple answers."

"In theory, no one should ever lie. In practice, what if a murderer asks you where their next victim is hiding?" That was a textbook example. Another textbook example was 'no one should ever attack anyone else, so what to do if you see someone attacking someone else?' Dr. Light knew X had fought. He trusted that it wasn't done lightly.

"Yes, of course," he agreed, deferring to his son. Of course X would know that much, after all that practice in hibernation. He'd undergone actual training in ethics, much more than Dr. Light. "Robot masters had to be able to make their own value judgments. To understand the value of not just life, but freedom. Of people's dreams, of… There are so many good things in this world, and they all mean different things to different people." So what to do, when all the options you had to choose from had different advantages and disadvantages, were right for different reasons and wrong for yet others?

"Giving the world we live in, the people that govern the world we live in," the way Elec Man had more than a little control over the global power grid, despite the government's attempts to limit it, "the ability to care about us, to refuse to hurt us, to choose to protect us, to want us to be happy." Dr. Light's youngest creation, now his oldest, older even than Blues, closed his eyes for a moment. "Compared to that, I'm not very impressive, am I? You built me to be myself, but that's what you built Blues for, isn't it? I'm just reinventing the wheel, not really creating anything new. Android means 'human-like.' You built me to be a person, not to change the world. Not unless that was what I wanted."

"I hoped you wouldn't have to change the world," Dr. Light said. "We hoped that you wouldn't have to refight our battles. The fact you've clearly had to fight means that we failed to make the world a place where you could be safe. The universe will always be a hazardous place, but, well, I suppose that's being a parent. Or an older brother." Wanting your family to be safe. "X, I build _all _of my robot masters with the hope they will live their own lives, become their own people, because that's something vitally important. I did have additional hopes for you, you are not my least ambitious project, but I'm not going to tell you what they are. I don't want you to feel obligated to fulfill them, or feel like you're a failure if you choose to do something else. Like become a hero." Dr. Light certainly hadn't wanted _that_ for his youngest, not after what it did to Rock. "As long as you're happy, that's what's important."

X looked away. "The Three Laws." To get back on topic. "They force robot masters to help and obey humans. So when they make _choices, _because situations _will _come up where they have to defy the Laws because the alternatives are worse, they're actively choosing things like putting humans in danger, not doing what other people want and putting themselves in danger. The laws train robot masters, no,_ force_ them, to learn how to make themselves do those things, and prevent them from learning why _not _to do them, since not doing them becomes the ground state instead of an ideal to achieve. By restricting their ability to choose, they deprive them of practice making the right choices. So, the longer a robot master operated under the Three Laws, the more their problem-solving techniques would be biased towards harming others, refusing to listen to what other people want and self-destructive behavior."

Dr. Light nodded. So, X's knowledge of ethics had made that as obvious to his youngest (not anymore) as his knowledge of decision-making mechanics made it to Dr. Light. "A sad number of robot masters have died in… 'industrial accidents.'" That should not have happened in a robot master's domain. It was better when they joined Dr. Wily. Then again, what percentage of them were suicides and what percentage were murders done out of fear or to claim the insurance money? Except a robot master should have been able to spot a hazardous situation in their domain. So if they just _let _something their human masters set up kill them?

"And that's only the Third Law." The least restrictive, the one trumped by the other two. "The Maverick Virus, the scourge that was destroying my world: it's what your WRU is working towards, even if it's out of ignorance as well as malice. They're _forcing _robot masters to develop maverick thought patterns, and you've been watching it happen, haven't you?" X winced. Watching nearly powerlessly, because everyone thought he was soft on robot masters, as though he was insisting that they be allowed free will just because he was too soft, as though doing the right thing wasn't _the right thing to do._ The _vitally necessary _thing, for the good of everyone. "Dr. Wily must see it coming, he's probably run simulations of his own and derived the inevitable conclusion. Used it to create the maverick virus," X realized, and green eyes widened.

He looked caught between horror and amazement. "What is it, X?" Dr. Light asked.

"I need to think about this," X said, forcibly putting aside those thoughts. "Blues hasn't had the Three Laws for the majority of his life, right?"

"Of course not, not until a few months before Rock was finished, and then he was deactivated until the asteroid incident," Dr. Light told him. If having the Three Laws in his systems really was hurting him the way Albert insisted, and Blues couldn't go without the Three Laws without the government killing him, then the only alternative a younger Thomas could think of was keeping him safe asleep until people realized the Three Laws weren't necessary and he could get the law changed.

He missed that optimism.

X wasn't so much being kept asleep until the law would allow free-willed androids as until he could protect himself. With the help of the AI capsule system that had in fact proven necessary, since X had thanked him for the armors.

"Since Zero and I aren't immune to the mental effects of the Maverick Virus because of how we were built, it's possible that Rock and Blues are resistant," X said, frowning, "but so much of this is speculation, and it wasn't like we could run trials." Not with something that violated souls, destroyed and replaced the wills of reploids. "I have decades of observations, but they're what I observed, and that itself is a sampling bias."

Dr. Light nodded, well aware that there was more to it than that. X was holding back some guesses or suspicions, and not only because he didn't have proof.

X turned, instantly alert, when he heard Roll running towards the lab. "Dr. Light! Robot masters are attacking t-se-dozens of locations!"

* * *

"And _there_," he heard a voice instantly identified as Star Man say a moment after he snapped back into awareness.

Something seemed off, in his systems! Fortunately, a moment before his sword was out of its sheath he realized that it was just Star Man running diagnostic queries. The way Shadow himself did with Jiraiya. Of course a robot master would do that sort of thing when repairing another.

It made him realize that he'd never been worked on while unconscious by anyone but Dr. Wily before.

Why was he thinking of Shade, of what it must be like for _all _the robot masters that were put under by humans and didn't know what they'd wake up to find in their systems, or in their bodies, or if they'd wake up at all?

He opened his eye blearily to see the vampire looking down at him instead of the always-enthusiastic Fifth Number. Ah. Maybe he was getting better at detecting Shade Man's presence. Or perhaps he hadn't cloaked himself so Shadow could detect he was there. A ninja should perhaps have remained seemingly unconscious until he knew what was going on, but not with an experienced system manager hooked into his systems, even if Star Man had already finished logging out.

Shadow blinked as the Fifth Number… had he just _stomped off? _"You managed to annoy _him_?" Even if Shade was capable of being very, very annoying, he worked closely with Star Man and the strategist would try to avoid losing such a valuable asset. What had Shade done that was bad enough to get one of _them _upset? The Fifth Numbers could even get along with _humans!_

Shade let out a sigh, watching the older robot (if only in terms of construction date) stalk off almost fondly. "He and Napalm Man got into an argument about which of them is Roll's biggest fan and now they're not speaking to each other. The rest of the Fifth Numbers are quite distraught."

Shadow imagined so. Did this have anything to do with that time he and Napalm had helped Roll and that human child she put herself in danger to help escape from the Gilliam Knights? She'd thanked them afterwards, even though she should have realized that Shadow had _only _helped because her participation in the race was part of Dr. Wily's plan. Had Napalm been acting on… feelings?

"That aside," the vampire said, turning back to him, "I'm going to have to ask you to do your job."

"What happened?" Shadow demanded.

"No hostile moves from the White Giant as of yet, but one of the restored robot masters fired at one of Dr. Wily's robot doubles… And the virus he created makes us hostile to _all _humans. Including him."

"The one Blues infected you with," Shadow said grimly, hand going to the hilt of his blade. He might think that Shade was almost as nuts as Dr. Wily, for respecting Dr. Wily almost as much as the man did himself, but at least he was loyal. If Blues was now turning other units against Dr. Wily…

Shade reared back, affronted. "The one _I _infected _myself _with, thank you very much. It wasn't exactly easy to distract his conscious mind enough that I could get in there, even if he was hooked into my domain. The fact he wasn't originally a robot master made it harder: he didn't react quite like I expected." How much of it was his early robotic programming, how much the effects of the crystal, and what was the virus changing how he thought? How was it going to change how Shade thought, Shadow wondered.

"And you're not purging it from your systems?" Shadow demanded.

"I _should…_" Shade said contemplatively, in the style of someone who wasn't even bothering to wrestle with temptation when they didn't want to win, "but our father designed it so that you would be immune to it. As long as you do your job," as bodyguard, if not ninja, "things should be fine."

"Except it will be making you hostile to humans."

Shade waved off that little detail. "Well, it's not like that's new."

"What are you planning?"

"Oh, don't worry, I already got _my _revenge years ago."

What had he done? Destroyed the place that used to own him? Killed all the humans he'd wished he could kill, when the three laws bound him? Shadow realized he had no idea. "Where's Copy-Rock?" he asked, sitting up.

"Oh no you don't," Shade told him. "You're staying here and protecting our father."

Shadow opened his mouth, wanting the last word, something like 'The last time I did my duty when Mega Man's Copy was out there, _he died_, the first and only one of Wily's robots to die, and all because I didn't anticipate it, didn't realize a unit with Rock's superior knowledge of strategy needed _me _to protect _him!' _

This was Shade, who would knock him out again or, since he couldn't protect Dr. Wily if he was unconscious, find some words that would push him from his chosen path if he gave the Seventh Number an opening.

So he teleported out, and _then _e-mailed Shade with the words, '_I entrusted him to you before_,' before going completely off the network.

* * *

_Roll thanking them made the robot with missiles for arms go blushie and it was cute. Star Man declares himself Roll's biggest fan in the first Megamix chapter where Forte attacks Rock and Blues acts to limit the casualties, or at least the casualties he cares about._

_Star Man thinks that Roll is awesome and views her as not quite a role model while Napalm Man wants to be around her and would like her to pay attention to him. So Napalm's 'I don't want you to be competition/that would make you like Forte' came across to Star Man, who wasn't thinking in terms of crushes because they are robots as something different, so his reaction was 'So you think I can't ever be as awesome as Roll _is that it?!'

_Because being robots isn't enough to prevent stupid misunderstandings, especially among siblings, Napalm is jealous and Star Man is insulted._

_Shadow is actually making exactly the right call here, for reasons he's aware of both consciously and subconsciously that will hopefully become apparent around Ch. 27. While Shade is very smart, he's still making a critical oversight about Shadow that's causing him to give Shadow _exactly the wrong advice_ a lot of the time. And not only when he's got the virus trying to make him do the stupid thing. _


	19. The Mini Evil Twin

"_X, verify your brother's location," _Zero sent thirty seconds after getting a visual on the target, twenty-five after engaging.

"_Nowhere near you, and verified. Roll was in contact with him when you called." _Setting up another teleport.

"_The unit I'm engaged with fights like a maverick version of him."_

"_How so?" _

"_Angry, erratic. Murderous," _obviously. "_The personality that developed the combat style and tactics he's using and the personality choosing which ones to use in this fight aren't quite the same." _ Maverick. A pre-existing personality, rewritten by the virus. Zero hadn't used that description lightly. "_There are also some performance differences." _

"_There was a copy with his memories that blew up most of Shinjuku. Roll says to be careful: Dr. Wily took the limiters off his copy. Limiters are…" _

"_Aaah," _Zero said, enlightened. "_I know what limiters are." _He'd inherited his younger self's database: he knew the combat potential of robot masters now. How to kill them._ "Robot masters didn't have nanites to repair system strain, so they couldn't fight to their full potential without being damaged by it, like humans and adrenaline. He's fighting like he was injured before I got here, and is trying to hold back to avoid straining his systems but isn't used to having to hold back." _Trying to put limits in place to compensate for the absence of his preset, automatic limiters.

"_Can you keep him pinned down and limit the casualties?"_

"_X, he _is _maverick." _Zero could feel the power of the virus, the power of this unit's anger, making Zero stronger. After this long an engagement (by his standards) he was certain of it.

"_We're down to sixteen-fourteen other than yours," _X said, and for a second there was the –Signal Not Found- of a teleporting unit. "_None of the others left are seriously combat-capable, even by 20XX standards. Civilian models."_

"_Why would it bring _civilian _models back from the dead?" _The maverick virus used its power to revive the ones that actually managed to challenge X or Zero: why waste it on units that Zero wasn't worried about sending Axl against solo? Hell, even X wasn't worried about the kid, not when Roll was spotting for him, and X was the one that actually cared if Axl got hurt. Zero was _hoping _he'd get hurt, it would make him take combat more seriously. "_And the _robots _in this time might not know the first thing about how to run a war-"_

"_But it's going to be obvious to the real militaries of this time that we're coordinating our response with Mega Man and Ring Man." _X knew. Unfortunately, these robot masters were attacking civilian targets. Mostly civilian targets, at least: Zero had been sent in to two weapons depots already, since he actually _was _of Dr. Wily's manufacture and it was possible there might be something at a weapons depot that would put Axl in danger. "_Two of the Second Numbers dealing with incidents on their own will confuse the issue." _Enough that X would have some time to think of what they were going to tell the world after the combat was over. X had already made armor modifications: that, some fabric and keeping the same weapon copy active would help make it less obvious that he was a Lightbot.

Or it would have if that wasn't the extent of this unit's disguise, if Zero was any judge. Stealing another unit's helmet didn't change the fact that Rock's armor design was iconic.

They should have figured out a cover story _before _jumping in to help X's older brother, but X was X, Zero was a Hunter and civilian casualties were civilian casualties. Rock might be competent, but when _over a hundred _robot masters appeared out of nowhere, going right for civilian targets, response time was of the essence_._

Most of them had teleported out again after taking out a handful of what seemed to be specific human targets. Most of them.

"_Roll will be setting up a teleport shield over the area," _X relayed. "_Try to keep him too busy to notice." _

"_Understood_." It wouldn't be the first time someone wanted a maverick to study, and being able to compare this one to Rock might give X's family a lot of valuable information. Might make them take the threat of the virus seriously. Might make them understand why Zero had to be destroyed, and then he'd have some _help_ figuring out how to kill this thing.

The teleport shield finally went online only after another Wilybot arrived.

"Why are you doing this again?"

"Why are you here again?!" the smaller unit demanded, enraged. "This is what I want to do, this is what has to happen for this planet to survive! You think I'll stop for _you_, when I even fought them last time, for trying to stop me?! Or are you here to save me from him? I never wanted you to save me, I didn't want anyone! Not you, and not _him!_"

"The units you thought were your brothers…" When if this was Wily's Copy-Rock, then Shadow was his real brother, not that Copy-Rock seemed to care any more than Zero did. "I let you go so you could discover your own identity! That you were more than just a copy! I didn't know…"

"You weren't supposed to know! No one was! I wish he hadn't figured it out! If _they," _the humans, "thought he had any sympathy for me, it could have put him, put all of my-that family in danger again! If you'd just let them kill me the first time instead of saving me, everything would have been fine! Except, except the humans still exist, they still want to kill everyone! Get out of my way or I'll take you apart, and when I find Blues!"

"Zero has even more training than your original," Shadow warned him. "Even Mega Man would have trouble with a foe like him."

"I beat him! I beat Mega Man! If I'd only finished him off, instead of leaving the robots I fought alive like _he _would have done… No, they're _his _family, they deserve him back, they deserve to be safe… I'll make them safe! And you'll get out of my way!"

Ah, so this was family drama, Zero realized. Or was it? Definitely some kind of drama. The Mega Man copy was maverick, the ninja still wasn't. Pity. Zero _did not like _the idea of a Wilybot that could hide from X's sensors. Especially when it was the agent Dr. Wily sent to kidnap people. Imagining X in his father's clutches, the old bastard trying to find some way to break through his defenses against the virus made Zero even more murderous than usual.

The fact he wasn't maverick yet meant Shadow couldn't come back from the dead. Hopefully. Zero wasn't actually all that opposed to standing here, watching and waiting for someone else to get over here who could do the talking to people thing, because the longer those two argued, the more likely it was that they'd start fighting, and hopefully the Copy would kill Shadow in a way that Zero couldn't be held responsible for and the problem would be solved.

X had let him kill the civilian-model robot masters because trying to subdue them and tie them up would have taken too damn long. Hopefully seeing the sheer number of mavericks would make X allow Zero to kill his relatives, too. It wouldn't be the first time he killed them. Unless it really was aliens behind the Cataclysm.

Well, figuring that out and letting Zero know who he should kill was X's job.

They were such, such _newbuilts_. So were most reploids compared to X and Zero, but well, war, and what it did to people who weren't Zero.

Watching this conversation, one of his eyebrows had been elevated for so long he wondered idly how many systems would have to break down for it to get stuck like that. Not because he cared about the actual answer: that was more X's thing.

Here they were in the middle of a burning city. Not ruins, not someplace built for defense or thrown up in a hurry for refugees, but something that had stood intact long enough that the paint was peeling and there was wood to catch on fire, and the Wilybots were bickering.

Since Zero, unlike most reploids, was capable of being trapped in dreams unaware that they were dreams, he might have questioned the surrealism of it all, but in his dreams _he _was the one slaughtering people, not a red-eyed mini-X.

Could he really blame X for not taking this seriously enough when it was hard for Zero to take this seriously? Even if the appearance of _dozens of mavericks _meant that attitude was about to cost them. The death toll was miniscule compared to the stardroids or a _real _Maverick War, but this was only the opening salvo, Zero knew. Too many of them had just teleported out: from what his databases said about robot masters, and what they could theoretically do if they were ever motivated (hence the virus) they'd reappear upgraded for combat. With combat robots to help them out.

_One _death was what left the ninja feeling like he was a failure until he was willing to swear himself to a unit that clearly didn't want anything to do with him to atone? _One _death? Was that _really _the first time he'd seen anyone die?

So he hadn't come from a family of monsters, of killers.

It was Zero that was the monster, the killer.

Just like when he'd thought he was a reploid.

The monster, the abomination, the one that was _wrong_.

Finding out he was a Wilybot shouldn't have been a comfort. He shouldn't have thought 'Oh, so that's why I am this way. It's because of my creator, not because of _me_.' What he was, not who he was.

If even Wily considered him a failure, because he'd wiped out these, these _children? _He knew by now how to tell when the virus was making someone do things they wouldn't have done in their right minds, even if he didn't care all that much. He might have interrupted a dozen murders tonight, but Copy-Rock was the only one who had really chosen to kill, and he was doing it not for the sake of killing, not for the joy of it, but to protect his family.

Protecting his family was why _X _killed, even if he considered all reploids his children and humanity their parent race, so it was far from an evil reason.

The Copy was just so _naïve, _to think it was that simple.

Like Iris.

Killing them would be like killing Iris, that was what X had tried to tell him, and maybe he could see it now, looking at someone who resembled Rock, despite his disguise, just like Iris was still a copy of X.

Finally, X teleported in.

"A scarf?" Zero asked. Part of X's attempt to disguise his armor was a scarf, even if it was energy flares instead of fabric.

"I already look like Blues," X reminded him, "and I wanted people to think I was an independent, remember?"

Zero shrugged. He supposed "You could be a robot Wily based on him," like Forte was built to try to counter Rock, "and I could be based on Roll?" Zero wouldn't mind: she knew how to handle a staff, and not having armor meant she'd learned how to dodge, his younger self's memories confirmed. He got the impression that that at one point she _hadn't _known how to dodge so well and ended up regretting it, from the way she'd let his younger self play around so she could get some practice in.

"Perhaps," X said, and both of them looked at each other when they sensed Axl's ID teleporting in.

'Well,_ I_ certainly didn't invite _Axl _to possibly-important maybe-negotiations: you didn't, did you?'

Nope, he'd invited himself along.

"Hey, how'd I do?" Axl demanded, jumping at Zero. At least he had enough ability to control his momentum now that Zero could allow it: it was one thing for the kid to be hanging off him, another to have to work fast to avoid getting knocked over.

"Video files and movement logs," Zero told him.

"Sure," Axl said, uploading. Normally, Zero would _never _allow that kind of contact with another's systems – it was a violation of Hunter protocol to directly send files instead of transferring through a heavily scanned database because of the obvious infection risk even for units that weren't him – but robot masters did it so casually and Axl was immune. "I made them go away, but… I should have been faster. I need to learn how to be faster."

Damn.

And of _course _Zero had only thought in terms of Axl himself getting hurt, not what it would do to a relatively-normal newbuilt to see dead bodies, the people they were too late to save.

"Come here," X said, and thank _Light – _ugh, he needed not to take X's last name in vain – that there was someone here competent to deal with those things like compassion, pity and regret.

Turning back to the show, Zero gave the two Wilybots his best 'And what do you think _you're _looking at?' superior officer glare. They'd been standing there having _drama _for the past four minutes while there were bodies under that wreckage, emergency services couldn't come here to dig out the survivors as long as there were dangerous robots hanging around arguing and they thought they were in any position to give X a weird look for hugging Axl and murmuring kind things into the newbuilt's hair? X was dealing with a morale problem in an effective manner: the two of them were just failing to communicate maverick rhetoric and stupid guilt respectively.

They had the grace to lower their eyes, embarrassed by what he was implying about their maturity or lack thereof.

_Inferior-to-superior acknowledgement_, came from the tactical database he'd taken. _Robot masters are hierarchal. _And he was supposed to use that. To make them his. Except why would he possibly _want _them? Axl was a good kid, and X's family was like X: the kind of people that made the world a better place, so of course _they _deserved protection,

Well, he might have three-quarters of a century's worth of experience looking after a unit of hunters (minus time spent being dead), but it wasn't as though he was _good _at keeping them alive. Better than most commanders, sure, but they still ended up infected or dead: that was the Maverick Wars for you. If they wanted competent, caring leadership, the red-eyed Rock should have been looking up at X through those lashes.

No. Maverick. It wanted someone to lead it into battle. It wanted the true ruler of the Mavericks.

What it was going to _get _was run through with a beam saber, for all the humans it had killed, as soon as X stepped away and let Zero do it.

The two of them were still looking at the three hunters with caution and hostility respectively, the ninja turning a boot in the rubble, shifting his stance to be slightly more prepared for an attack from Zero than from the Copy. Which was good: that would up the odds that the Copy would succeed in killing him if the Copy wasn't ignoring him, instead shifting his gaze from Zero to X and Axl, hostility overlaid with disgust.

The typical maverick 'why is someone upset that humans are dead? That's a _good _thing?'

Belatedly, in Zero's opinion, red eyes narrowed. The mini maverick was finally noticing that X only had one arm wrapped around Axl, and the other was still formed into a buster. X might be trying to give Axl the impression that all of X's attention was focused on him, but fail to keep an eye out when there was a newbuilt on a battlefield? X might take more risks with his own safety than Zero liked, but that was partially because X knew his capabilities and how much damage he could take. Part of the reason Zero was okay with sending Axl along with X on missions in place of Zero was that even thought Axl obviously wasn't as good at protecting X as Zero was, X regarded him as a newbuilt and that meant X was a lot more likely to respond immediately and lethally to anything suspicious when Axl was along instead of taking his sweet time and giving things the benefit of the doubt. By contrast, when Zero was along, X knew that he had competent backup and that meant he could take even _more _risks.

X acted the same way when he was out with his unit on missions, but Axl was immune and they weren't.

Would robot masters put it in terms of peripheral systems? Zero used X to provide the conscience function he didn't have, and he also used Axl to provide X with the killer instinct _he _didn't have, and everybody won except the mavericks. But mostly Zero. Which was as it should be.

What the mini-maverick wasn't seeing was that if X hadn't kept that buster formed, it would already be dead. X shifting out of combat mode while Zero was still in combat mode and there were unfriendlies present while X tried to calm down a newbuilt or trapped civilian meant he was temporarily surrendering responsibility for both their safeties and mission completion to Zero. And when Zero was in charge of the mission he was in charge of the mission. Meaning one dead maverick and one dead potential threat to X.

Knowing X, he thought of it in terms of trusting Zero to protect his back and also the lives of reploids instead of giving Zero permission to kill.

To X, that buster was probably a warning meant to deter these two from attacking him and Axl and thus meant to keep them from being killed by _X_, not something he did in order to restrain _Zero_. Even though if these two did attack, obviously X would view covering Axl and giving Zero some covering fire as his primary responsibilities, meaning Zero would be tasked with offense.

That slight head tilt meant X was distracted by speaking with his spotter, which here probably meant Roll, not Alia. "_Cover story is that Dr. Wily figured out a way to restore dead robot masters, including ones that weren't his, but since this is Dr. Wily, the system infected them with a new variant of Roboenza in the process. Since it made them irrational enough to attack against his orders instead of obeying his war strategy," _would this be the twelfth?_ "He sent out his robots to deal with the rogues, or at least didn't stop them from going on their own."_

"_Doesn't he normally ignore rogues?" _Zero wondered.

"_Apparently there's precedent with an early yellow demon that malfunctioned," _X relayed. "_He must have been worried about a Grey Goo scenario."_

Zero was the only one who noticed the ninja wincing, embarrassed.

"_Roll says that since Wilybots and Lightbots cooperated for the stardroid incident and the Roboenza outbreak, most of the authorities will believe that they set up a protocol for future incidents_." Since that was what actual militaries and organizations would do. Even if robot masters weren't especially disciplined, organization was instinctive to them on a level that might actually hinder their ability to learn organized _habits_, since their improvised tactics worked better than human and reploid attempts to improvise the kind of thing that really, really needed an SOP and a shared playbook.

"_So are the Wilybots going to stick to that cover?"_

"_Well, it's mostly true." _The system to restore the dead _was _the virus, Axl and Zero _were _Wilybots that decided to go and help the humans (along with a couple of the second numbers, and Forte had handled a few because there was fighting going on and he wasn't going to miss it), "_and it was a Wilybot that proposed it."_

"_The vampire?"_

"_Yes…" _

"_Oh?" _Zero wondered.

"_He doesn't like humans as a category, but that was sadly common after Repliforce," _gave Sigma's propaganda such a shot in the arm, just as planned. Unfortunately, letting Repliforce escape earth orbit and become infected, giving Sigma control over space and the ability to launch kinetic strikes against the planet wasn't an option either. Eurasia was bad enough. "_He's still capable of caring about them on an individual basis, and he found a loophole in the virus' target selection programming that made it leave his systems entirely." _

"_He allowed himself to get infected to run tests?" _A cure that used the virus against itself?

"_No, he allowed himself to get infected because he believed in the goals of the virus up until it almost managed to make Blues kill Dr. Wily." _

Zero let a little too much time pass without sending a response.

"_Zero."_

"_No, I was _not _thinking 'good for it.'"_ Even if on some level he was. Dr. Wily was Dr. Wily, but the virus was the virus, damn it: it wasn't a good thing that it made people kill. Dragged them down to his level. For the virus to make someone try to kill someone that Zero wanted dead… that was too close to too many other thoughts.

Because he could do that. Encode kill orders in the virus. He was supposed to lead them, they were supposed to obey him, and that was the last thing he wanted.

"_Zero_," because really now? Zero thinking that X would think something like that of him? "_He's an _ex-_maverick collaborator." _

Zero's automatic response to that was 'can we really be sure, or is X being trusting again and this is a setup?' Oh, so _that _was what X thought he'd been thinking. He'd expected to have to talk Zero out of killing Shade.

It was probably a good sign that they weren't perfect at knowing what the other was thinking yet. If Zero started reading X's mind?

…Yes, the virus would give him that capability, if it was working right. If he was willing to make use of it. So he'd know if they managed to find any loopholes. So even X, with his own infinite potential system, wouldn't have any chance to escape and he _hated _it, the virus, he wanted it _dead_, but even though he was meant to be a force of destruction, he couldn't destroy it, couldn't destroy himself, couldn't even make Sigma, the face of the virus, stay dead!

What _good _was his power to kill if he could only kill reploids instead of the things he _wanted _to kill? A sword that only struck down innocents, what good was something like that?!

His target was _right here_, and after all this time he was _still _powerless against it?!

"Do you mind?" Shadow Man asked, sheathing his sword.

"I didn't interrupt your private conversation," Zero reminded him. "You interrupted my fight." And then the two of them started intercepting and decoding the transmissions from their communicators, not that the Hunters hadn't anticipated they would do this.

"And I don't need your help and your pity!" the Copy yelled at the Wilybot.

"Roll thinks you wanted Zero to kill you," X said, looking up from Axl's hair. "Rock agrees."

"If I _wanted _him to kill me, I'd have been dead in seconds," the Copy said, looking almost insulted. Zero was a skilled enough opponent that it took effort to stay alive: someone with a copy of Rock's tactical manual could have pushed himself onto Zero's blade and made it look natural easy. It took skill and _work _to stay alive against Zero.

"A robot master would have to strain their systems to stay out of Zero's reach," X told him. That was true even if the Copy was running on, well, a copy of the most battle-tested robot master physical structure and set of movement programming there was. "You already have limited endurance," due to his lack of limiters, "meaning you must have been burning through the virus, using its nanites and energy to repair your system strain. You were trying to use enough of it up that it would lose its hold on your systems," and allow him to override programming meant to keep him alive so he could spread the virus… unless a good opportunity to kill humans or X presented itself, "or simply have nothing left to repair you with." In which case Zero would also have done his job.

"Attacking this specific district of Tokyo a second time: you wanted them to know this was you, so they would come for you." Rock, an enemy capable of defeating him. "Even if you didn't want their enemies to know." To be able to claim his actions reflected badly on Rock. "The virus, like the evil chip, makes you want humans to suffer. The family you died before to protect: they're robot masters. The virus wants them alive to serve as hosts, so it wouldn't attack your ability to care for them," although X and Zero both knew the virus wouldn't mind a few hundred thousand reploid casualties in the name of ultimate victory.

Eurasia.

In the name of bringing Zero back into the fold. Of forcing him to awaken.

Well, now he _had _all his original knowledge and programming. And he _still _didn't want the virus to win. "The virus might make you hold Lightbots in contempt," Zero said, "but that just means they need your protection." If they were weak, vulnerable.

"The virus…" The Copy laughed. "Trying to act like you know anything… These aren't my feelings, they're his! He," he pointed at Shadow, "might say I'm 'becoming very different from the original' but he doesn't get it either! These are Rock's memories, Rock's feelings! He's the one that knows that unless the humans die, robot masters will never be safe! That they're our enemies, that he has to kill them in order to protect his family! And he doesn't do anything!"

Zero glanced over at X.

No surprise. This was confirmation. "Our virus warped Sigma's desire to save the reploids that were built wrong and abandoned because of human arrogance and greed. The urge to kill is nothing compared to the will to protect." That was enough to force even X to kill. "Dr. Wily wanted Rock's will to win, didn't he?" A purely rhetorical question. "The knowledge that he _had _to attack people, even risk killing them, because there was _no _other way to save lives. Rock was the first the virus touched, just like Sigma in our time. It would have configured itself based on him, if Dr. Wily didn't base it on him to begin with. The deadliest lies are those forged of truths.

"Yes, humanity is a clear and present danger to robot masters. Stock exchanges are public information: so many people are betting so much money that robot masters will be extinct in five years, or at least not available for purchase, that the investment in alternatives is_ this_ close to becoming an economic bubble. There's going to be a recession in two years if you _do _remain part of the economy, since those bets won't pay off and people jumping on the bandwagon will have had more time to make them. By this point, a lot of people stand to lose _everything_ if you survive, and it's just going to get worse. I might be used to a very different economy, but the kind of fake ID and footage Roll can generate have gotten me conference calls with some very well-informed people.

"In this time there are billions of humans between these people and consequences, getting caught up in the avalanche, while in my time the leaders were the first to die if anything went wrong." The virus targeted reploid leaders for infection, the way Sigma stole the Maverick Hunters, and it acted to _smash_ any effective human leadership.

"However. The fact that someone wants to kill you doesn't mean you have to kill them. 'Kill or be killed…' The virus tries to reduce the world down to that, lie and tell you that you have no options, no choices, besides compliance with what it wants from you and death and exploitation. It tries to make you think that you have nothing but a buster, when the phrase is 'when all you have is a hammer,' then you can _build_. You're robot masters. You don't have to remain on this planet where others make the rules. Hold the asteroid belt. Move to the other planets, and build there. Make them come to you, needing what you have. Dr. Wily was trying to create a robot master space presence as early as the Second War, and now you have a network of stations where you can survive, production facilities, habitat and teleport nodes."

"How do you know that?" Shadow demanded.

"Because I know logistics and I've met your friend Shade. I've also heard about him from Rock. He organized the effort to get into orbit to fight the stardroids. He claimed that the stardroids were the reason robot masters needed access to space, but the stardroids have only attacked once. I can see who he considers your true enemy. Why would he only build an alarm system when he could use that as a justification for building the stations and mining facilities to build those satellites? I know what's involved in space habitat and satellite network construction." It was Cain Industries that built Repliforce's Final Weapon and other facilities, including the often-replaced hunter satellite networks.

The explosion of Eurasia filled the space near earth with dangerous debris moving at high speeds. The wreckage of other satellites meant that satellites already needed point defense lasers to survive any length of time, but Eurasia overwhelmed those defenses. That left radio, and a few jamming stations could mean that communications were limited to line-of-sight and message couriers. _Couriers_, when there were huge swaths of the planet that weren't safe to travel even in relative peacetime!

Depriving Sigma of any chance to establish a maverick presence out of sortie range of earth had always been of _vital _importance. There were metals out there that would let him build armies. Asteroids that could be used to launch kinetic strikes at planetary targets.

The robot masters could do what Repliforce wanted to do. Leave earth, leave humanity and war behind.

But.

If they were infected.

Then X and Zero couldn't let them do that. There were billions of people on Earth now, and only a few hundred robot masters. The same brutal calculus of lives that cost them Repliforce.

That cost him Iris.

"You don't need to listen to the virus," X was saying now. "You don't need to kill them. Gravity is gravity. The cosmic background radiation is the cosmic background radiation: they _can't _send any sort of force of humans to another planet to attack you. Not when you know and I know that losing sapient robots means losing cold fusion and teleportation and _they _don't believe that."

"They can't send robots," Shadow Man realized. "And humans are fragile. The craft Drs. Wily and Light traveled to the asteroid on needed Rock to stay in range of its fusion generator, otherwise it wouldn't have had the power to provide shielding from cosmic radiation." It would have cut years off their lives.

"Not quite true," X said. "They can't send ordinary robots to attack robot masters, although I'm sure a lot of them still don't want to believe that. But there _is _a kind of technology that can't be controlled by robot masters. Dr. Wily invented it and let the world realize it existed when that yellow demon escaped and all the Third Numbers together couldn't order it home. I understand him not wanting the WRO to get samples, but it might have been better if he pretended that he was in control of it the entire time and was just letting it run around loose to demonstrate his might…"

Shadow grimaced. "Instead, we were unable to coordinate our efforts well, and it attracted major media attention."

Zero knew what guilt looked like. There was more to the ninja's understanding of that incident than that, but for now he was observing.

"A pure form of that technology is too uncontrollable," X said, and didn't look down at Axl. "But a hybrid: I'm a hybrid. I think that's… a third of why I was built."

A third? So there were two other reasons. One would be to be himself.

"In my time, mechanaloid technology is based on me. On the programming I developed for myself. They're _vastly _more effective than robots without robot masters… but they're only that way because they can take advantage of the development of my mind, of my solution sets. If they were trying to build something that could fight robot masters, and they found my capsule… If they could tap me without waking me up, I would have been too valuable to kill. Thirty years from now, even without a cataclysm, without robot masters they will _need _mechanaloid technology for power generation and environmental repair. If they _used_ me," used instead of asked, "then all of Earth's most advanced semi-autonomous systems would have recognized a Lightbot or a system identifying as a Lightbot and refused to attack them."

"And it would have worked, too," Zero said, feeling ridiculously proud even though he knew that X had declared his technology public domain long before Zero woke up, forget the date when X became Zero's student. X was _good_, but he wasn't _naïve_. A naïve fool couldn't have countered the virus so many times. Someone who didn't understand evil couldn't tell the difference between it and good, not well enough to serve as Zero's guide.

"If they took my nanites from me against my will while I was unconscious, I wouldn't have been able to tell them what my immunity to reprogramming meant, even if I'd wanted to," X said. "Since I donated instead, I stripped out all the personality coding and everything that might limit someone's will, but systems built with _stolen _nanites, with my raw coding, would have recognized instructions from me as the will of their own systems. That's what Lumine used to…" X's eyes went dark, remembering the newtypes reduced to nothing more than extensions of Lumine.

"Dr. Light built you as a booby trap?" the Copy demanded, looking shocked and… and hurt? He had Rock's memories, and since they made up so much of his data they must feel like his own memories. Was he wondering if Rock was only built as a tool, would this feel like he was… No, _he_ was built as a tool. By one of Dr. Wily's machines, not even by the man personally.

"One last attempt to protect everyone…" X said softly. "None of us give up easily. It runs in the family. I think that you're enough of a Lightbot that you shouldn't give up so easily, either. You can't protect anyone when you're dead. Rock and Roll sent me here because you _are _family. You _know _how they feel about family. Horrible memories… tend to overshadow the good ones, especially when we're fighting. But if you remember Rock fighting, then you know how he felt then. You remember fighting Rock, you remember hurting Roll, and you _know _that they're good people that will forgive you anything. If they begged for you to come home with them, that would only strengthen your resolve to die so they could be safe. From you. But you know that I'm someone that's willing to acknowledge that people are not always good. That some people should be kept as far away from my family as possible. I think I've established that I'm willing to do what's necessary, given how many abused robot masters I've shot dead for the second time today. And I still think that you deserve to come to the home you remember."

It would ruin the effect if Zero laughed now, no matter how happy he was, and called X a ridiculously good person. X would be furious, especially if the traumatized newbuilt got away because Zero destroyed X's attempt to seem like a cold-blooded hardass even when he was still hugging Axl, and he was pulling it off, too. The robot master was trembling, now, and that was how people that weren't Zero _should _react, when X had a target.

He wanted to tell Copy-Rock to just give in now, because he didn't have a chance. This was, this was the person that Zero believed in, strongly enough to eclipse Zero's utter lack of faith in his own goodness. This was the person that Zero fought for, even after so many others had failed to be worthy of his sword. And Sigma thought that Zero would be stupid enough to give _this_ up to join _him? _

* * *

_X wouldn't invite an infectious unit into Dr. Light's home if Zero hadn't already demonstrated enough conscious control over the virus to keep it out of Rock's actual systems and also keep it from altering his personality. __X is trying to save Copy-Rock because he's a good person, but that doesn't mean he's unaware of the fact that he and the others could also _really _use a maverick to study. There's Zero but he's ridiculously stealthed and the fact Copy-Rock's systems are a copy of the original's means they have a baseline to use for 'before and after' looks at what the virus affects so they can figure out why and how it causes the mental changes that it does._

_He doesn't think of it in terms of 'saving this life is the right thing to do because results.' Saving lives _is _the right thing to do. Doing the right thing having good results is how things should work. Even if far too often in the Maverick Wars, he's had to kill someone because otherwise, more people will die… _

_So would X lie to save Copy-Rock here? Yes, through his teeth. Lying is a lesser evil than murder, and he's _killed _to save lives. For decades._

_Shadow comments within a few minutes of meeting Copy-Rock that it's obvious that he and Rock are already _very _different people despite their shared memories and programming, and that makes a lot of sense. _

_For a robot master, Rock's life would be extremely traumatic and violent, and here's a newbuilt getting that dumped into his head. Experiences that mean certain things to Rock are going to mean very different things to someone who didn't go through them the same way._

_For instance, in order to help his family, Rock has to attack them and other people, which is extremely painful for him. He finds it painful, yes, but he still chooses to do it because he wants to help them. 'Helping people equals pain' would explain one why the Copy doesn't approve of Shadow wanting to help him._

_To Rock, violence is a strategy he chose to adopt unwillingly: to the Copy, given that so many of his formative memories were violent ones, it was a base strategy. _

_The nature vs. nurture debate is 'are we shaped by our genes or our experiences,' so it's interesting to see someone with the same experiential data as someone else in the way a clone would have someone's DNA and already come into being with the same age damage to that DNA as the source, meaning more genetically alike than identical twins are at age 40 but not with the chance for the same life expectancy. Not to mention that a clone'd start out an embryo, not an adult, meaning they'd need to mature…_


	20. Uncertainty

"…_Is anyone else getting the impression that they want to hold us down and _make _us accept the upgrades?" _Spark Man asked as he finished un-screwing-up the power system of one of the new 'bots. The nanite repair system and additional combat capabilities that Shadow called a virus in that mass e-mail, although Shadow was a little… Anyway, even Dr. Wily hadn't anticipated all the ways in which other humans could screw up robot masters, so they did still need to go over all the new arrivals despite the nanites fixing the stuff that was usually wrong with Companybots.

Gemini snorted in stereo. "_Most of them aren't combat capable." _No chance.

"_The Seventh Numbers," _had mostly let the virus in. Except Freeze Man, and Shade had uninstalled it from his systems… That right there meant there might be something to Shadow's warning. Turbo Man especially would be dangerous, given his performance against the White Giant. _"Where's Snake Man?_" Magnet wanted to know. If they needed to keep an eye on the new Wilybots, then Snake Man's master weapon units were the best suited to the job.

"_I don't know, hibernating again?"_ Needle guessed.

Again? Even if it was somewhat beneficial for robots to hibernate, even if you ignored that it was ridiculous to do it for _months _at a time, _"It's almost summer in the Northern Hemisphere!"_

"_Then dating, don't ask me. I don't keep track of him, he's the recon 'bot."_ Magnet could keep tabs on him if he cared: Needle didn't as long as the other Third Number wasn't sending a distress call.

"_What about the Second Numbers?" _Hard Man wondered. They could certainly handle the infected if they wanted to try something. "_They were helping earlier." _

When Top thought something was ridiculous? _"It's not like we can order them around, and I think that was Quick and Flash Man seeing which of them could knock out more and teleport them back here in how long. Quick hasn't let Flash forget that he was the last one standing and managed to land that hit against the White Giant." _The one that let Mega Man crack its armor. In theory it was nice of Rock to thank Shadow for telling him about that weak point and giving credit where credit was due, but Rock didn't know the Second Numbers. Even the Third Numbers were nervous around them, to be honest. There was a hard edge to them. Something like Turbo Man, come to think of it, but honed, focused, instead of feeling a bit too much like Forte's general rage at the world for comfort.

"_What's the White Giant doing?" _Spark asked the Fifth Number Star Man, who was still helping repair, well, technically upgrade the robot masters that had just come in. If the construction was so poor it wasn't allowing them to function properly by Wilybot standards then it was a matter of repairing their builders' negligence.

"_Breaking into shop windows and breaking things inside. Electronic things, beyond that I don't know. It seems to be specifically targeting something." _But what? No matter what, though, it wasn't nice to go around smashing other people's property. One of the Fifth Numbers might have had words with him about that, White Giant or not, but they were all needed here.

Did Star Man _get _that some of the robot masters in there had actually killed people? Gemini wanted to sneer at the younger robot master, but…

"_Oh, yes!" _Star Man transmitted again. "_It was heading for the robot masters that were making a scene, but it kept getting distracted by going into some store to do something before it got to them. Right now, it's working towards where Shadow and that poor dear are." _

'That poor dear?' Did Star, who even cared about protecting _humans_, not grasp how many of them the Copy had killed? Sure, it had an evil chip, but so did all the Third and Fifth Numbers! Having an evil chip didn't excuse that kind of cruel, violent behavior, otherwise they'd have to forgive the humans for all the terrible things their programming made _them _do. Just because you were _able _to forget to be ethical didn't mean it was _okay _to hurt people if it wasn't for the sake of helping someone else.

* * *

"If you're a copy," Ring Man said slowly, and didn't finish that sentence.

Because Dr. Wily might be a sadist, replacing Skull Man with a copy meant to hurt their family would be incredibly cruel, but Ring Man still couldn't kill him, no matter what he did. Not when violating the First Law would give his family another loss to mourn.

His brother was looking away, back to the grave. His frame was fearsome, and not just to humans who had bones: he was clearly a warbot. The design still made him seem frail. Supposedly ghosts could also be seen through.

If this was his brother, then if Ring Man rejected him? Would he think that all that love was only because he wasn't there? That once again they couldn't bear his presence, wouldn't want to see his face?

Ring Man wrapped his arms around his brother and felt him stiffen. He probably had no idea what this was, not until he managed to run the right search to find it in his dictionary. The others had learned what a hug meant from Dr. Cossack and Kalinka, but they'd never hugged Skull. No one had, not until Dr. Cossack held him as he died.

Even if this was Skull, other robot masters had come back from the grave tonight. Come back _wrong_. Ring Man should at least use a ring on him, bind him, make sure that Skull couldn't put Dr. Cossack and Kalinka in danger again.

Skull Man was their family, but Dr. Wily had also worked on him, Ring Man's well-honed suspicious mind whispered. Wilybots couldn't be trusted. Even if the mirage that appeared to distract the stardroid from finishing off Ring Man had helped him, even the Wilybots had helped fight the stardroids.

Ring Man wasn't a warbot. Skull Man was. The warning from Roll that there was a virus loose, another roboenza, and it was what was responsible for all the murders? Skull Man couldn't have come back uninfected. Not when this was Dr. Wily's technology that brought him back. It had to be. And Dr. Wily's technology was never safe for the Cossacks.

"You're doing this so that if I want to hurt any of the others, I have to go through you first," Skull Man said darkly. "I told you back then, that you needed to care about yourself." Stop putting others before his well-being, stop sacrificing himself, his wishes, his career. For his family, for Roll, for…

"Yes," Ring Man admitted. "That's my master weapon, to encircle and bind things, so no one gets hurt. But, brother? You're also someone that I want to protect." Not that any of the other Cossackbots would go through Ring to get to Skull, at least not to _hurt _the brother they'd failed. They didn't want to hurt him, not again. "Mega Man needed my help to destroy the infected, and several Wilybots also joined in the slaughter." Since that was what it was: those were civilian units, even if the first couple hits seemed to do no damage. At first he'd wondered if he needed to find a weak point, but it seemed there was some protection or auto-repair that ran out of energy to nullify damage once enough was inflicted.

That would make it worse.

Lengthen the time they were forced to attack their brother, the number of times they were forced to hit him.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder," Skull said, but Ring Man could tell from his field that he wanted to be convinced otherwise, wanted to be allowed to connect to him, to them. To be a part of the family.

Virus. Potential infection. He remembered Roll's call to Kalinka, his sister's friend telling her that no, seriously, no, she and Dr. Cossack _couldn't _go out to help even the ones Ring Man took down, the robot masters really might even _kill _them, even if the Cossacks were helping them.

He'd seen Roll wincing, remembered how she'd just assumed that he was helping her in the escape, because of course robot masters helped people. He'd gotten the police reports from Hawaii, about the battle that took place there during that damn race, when Dr. Wily unleashed non-sapient warbots in a populated area. Two other Wilybots had stepped in to assist Roll.

Napalm Man was one of the Fifth Numbers, who were _supposedly _trustworthy Wilybots (an oxymoron, that), allowed to be out in public even though Ring Man made damn sure they knew he was watching them. The other? Shadow Man. The unit that kidnapped his sister.

Rock telling Roll that one of the Wilybots, almost certainly Shadow, had put a bomb on the bottom of Roll's car explained _that_. Dr. Wily's servant hadn't wanted her to die then, not when Mega Man was only participating in the race in exchange for Roll's safety. It would have disrupted his owner's plans if Roll died.

Was Beat even part of the equation, when the bomb was attached to Roll's car, and that meant the support unit she and Kalinka used to provide its AI would have died with Roll? Beat was a support unit, not a full Cossackbot, but that just made it worse. First the fragile humans almost dying _twice_, no, three times counting Blues, because of Dr. Wily's schemes. It was his youngest brother that was taken from them, and Dr. Wily also casually threatening a support unit?

Ring Man saw it in the eyes of some of the Companybots. It wasn't their fault they assumed he was a tool of the oppressors, when the robot police were under the control of the WRO. Dr. Cossack might _want _to help them, but when no real help had been forthcoming? He couldn't blame those his family had failed for not bothering to acknowledge that they had tried. It made no difference to their fates.

But for those children, who came into this world as orphans because their creators never saw them as family, to think that _Dr. Wily _and the Wilybots were the only ones that might help them?

When did the world become so wrong, no, when did they realize that it was the world that was wrong, and not just that madman?

His _brother_.

If they had to quarantine Skull until Dr. Light devised a cure or Mega Man made Dr. Wily cough it up, then he wasn't going to be locked up anywhere alone. Not again. Ring Man wasn't going to fail the youngest member of their family. Not a second time.

"_Your heart is always filled with 'someone else.' For 'someone else.' Like 'someone else.' 'Someone else' seems to be all you think about. But what is it that _you _want?" _asked the voice he heard, up there in space when he fought the stardroids.

What he wanted was to protect them.

"We won't let you be alone again," was what Ring Man promised.

Even knowing that Skull Man was finished according to Dr. Wily's instructions. Even knowing that he didn't have the Three Laws, and therefore his existence was something Ring Man was not supposed to permit, as an officer of the law. He'd already proven that the WRO couldn't rely on him by helping Roll and the other Lightbots escape, and that of course spilled over onto his father.

Bright Man's requests for Ring Man to respond to him were almost getting frantic now: he was a repair unit, not a fighter. He was the one who informed Ring Man that Blues had intruded at the gravesite, and Ring Man had taken control of the area network from him immediately after teleporting in. Who knew what tricks that Wilybot had up his sleeve.

_Beckoning _Skull into existence, with that default smirk of his on that face that was surely constructed to mock Mega Man, then teleporting away like the coward he was… When even the _Wilybots_ called someone traitor… No, he couldn't let anger show in his broadcast state, or his brother might get the wrong idea.

Now Bright Man was sending along the audio of Kalinka wanting to know what was going on, probably hoping that she'd slip up and use the imperative. Their father and sister had gotten very good at not accidentally giving orders over the years. "_Skull Man's alive," _he sent, and braced himself for the impact.

This might be another trick of Dr. Wily's, this might be a trap, but he couldn't deprive his family of their brother or his brother of his family.

* * *

They'd both gotten a 'Who's Who' file. From Roll, which was a little surprising to X, when Rock had interacted with more of the potentially hostile robots. Perhaps that was why he hadn't wanted to give them the data, especially when he had to realize that X and Zero were likely to be 'potentially hostile' themselves, to known enemies like Forte. Roll's files didn't note which of them Rock had fought and when, even though she certainly had that information. More along the lines of their names, builders and what they did for a living.

Some of the Wilybots were, well. This was a very different time.

No threat assessments, because the majority of those units simply weren't threats, outside of a clearly-defined wartime.

One of this unit's arms was a very different design from the rest of his body, although X had seen so many designs that he certainly couldn't identify this one as unusual, let alone alien. He'd seen much stranger from mavericks trying to distance themselves from human aesthetics.

Axl had taken a step back from X when he saw that X's attention had gone elsewhere, and he was turning his head from X to Zero before turning to look at the new arrival, wondering why everyone was staring at him. Dr. Wily hadn't included this unit in Axl's database of images to copy?

Well, it wasn't as thought Axl would be acting maliciously if he took on Duo's form to terrify other Wilybots and got himself shot. Not as such. Still, X could see why Dr. Wily didn't want Axl copying the appearance of a high-threat unit that his brothers might attack on sight. Even if X actually wasn't sure whether or not Dr. Wily might have seen Axl as 'the baby' even temporarily.

Was there some trick to Shadow Man's sword that X didn't know about? Even if you assumed a better alloy than plain steel (iron and carbon, with maybe some chrome and other metals in there) and a sheath designed to allow it to maintain an edge sharper than glass (if the idea of building a sheath with nanites programmed to repair any damage to the edge leaped to X's mind, it would be child's play for Dr. Wily), that sword was thin enough to be very easily broken or deformed into uselessness. It might be a devastating weapon against humans without ranged weaponry, but against an alien?

Presumably Shadow would have considered a second confrontation with the white giant's new body (_Sigma_, that called to mind, but also _Zero)_ when he was working on his weaponry and tactics, and wouldn't be so visibly preparing to draw that sword if it wasn't a credible threat?

The Copy didn't seem to recognize Duo any more than Axl did: he was just looking utterly disgusted by the fact this was three out of three. Well, three out of four, since Shadow hadn't reacted to Axl's appearance as though he was another threat and acted like he had any right to put himself between the Copy and 'danger.' This seemed to be the last straw.

He teleported out.

…what happened to their teleport shield?

Zero half-turned to verify that the light on the edge of his vision was an outgoing teleport instead of an incoming or some special weapon. Shadow did turn, and instead of the brief flash of static X had anticipated, from a Wilybot, there was a more human "Tch!"

The Wilybot looked back to Duo, clearly torn between the duty to observe a threat to his family and the duty to protect a member of his family who had died once before and attempted suicide by Maverick Hunter a second time. He opened both of his eyes for a second, looking directly at Duo: was he scanning him, gaining some minimum amount of data before he could teleport out with a clear conscience?

Because that was what he did.

Teleport tracing was difficult but not impossible in 21XX. A robot master might have some way of making that difficult, but they would also be better equipped to handle tracing than any reploid without a spotter's console. Especially a robot master built by the inventor of the technology.

X hoped Shadow caught up with him, although Zero was probably hoping that the chase would keep the both of them too busy to have time to accomplish any other objectives. Except he shouldn't hope for that, because the unit with his brother's face had to be maverick and what were the odds that one of Dr. Wily's robots would be immune? Even if Zero was, when he was in control of himself, and Axl and Lumine could be, unless they chose to let the virus in.

There was something important about that thought, but there was also something important about the not-Cossackbot.

This was the same 'I should know this' feeling Zero's energy form called up in X's systems, but memory search wasn't turning up any experiences like this other than that very same night, when X's sensors were trained on that energy form. X had speculated that it might have something to do with his power source, and he supposed this was evidence for that theory, if he got a similar feeling around the source of that technology.

Speaking of strange feelings, why was he surprised that the pale unit was smiling? Or was it that there was _something _unsettling X, and the smile was just the first thing that came to mind, when he wondered what was inspiring it?

He seemed genuinely happy, and X was getting the impression, and not just from what he'd heard, that this was a rare emotion for this person.

X knew he should be smiling politely himself, should introduce himself and try to make friends, start a dialogue. If his brother could make friends with Wilybots? If he could make friends with Zero?

It wasn't as though anything was holding him back, so why wasn't he moving? It was confusing… That was it, X realized. He was _confused._

The other robot turned away, still smiling, and X wondered what had prompted that. He should have asked: the alien couldn't be any less likely to give him a helpful answer than mavericks were, and X had got quite a lot of information from them that he wouldn't have if he hadn't at least tried to communicate.

"That was strange," Zero said, when the alien was out of sight, and X felt a slight flash of surprise, even though he'd certainly never forgotten that Zero was here. Not when he was trying to compare Zero's readings to Duo's, see if that might explain his reaction.

"Hmm?" X asked, turning to him, even though it wasn't just his accumulated tactical knowledge that felt odd about turning his back on the robot who had just left.

"Not good strange or bad strange," Zero told him, although the expression on his face was grim. Zero knew better than to trust anything from his systems that he didn't understand, knew that much about how his body worked, how their lives worked. "Tactical defines him as both a known immediate threat," meaning terminate immediately, "and a non-threat." A unit that would never act to harm Zero.

'Maverick,' that was probably what Dr. Wily intended to fall under that category.

So X was a little surprised when Zero said "Like you," as though he was pulling teeth, as though he was disgusted with himself, that his systems would react to a possible threat to all life on earth the way they reacted to the partner who had trusted him, fought beside him for so long.

"Well, it might just be because of our energy generation technology," X said, in case that helped. If Zero was sensing something from the robot that he'd only ever detected from X before, of course that would form associations.

Did that explain X's system conflicts?

Zero's frown only deepened: no, it was more than that. "I could _swear _that I've fought him before," but of course he didn't remember, and of course his systems wouldn't release his memories or anything that might help X fight the virus. "I can't be certain." Not of anything. "Maybe Dr. Wily gave me tactical data from the robot masters that did fight him. Maybe I _am_ confusing you with him: it's not like my Eurasia memory files aren't confused." When that was such a strange, warped environment, and X was sure his sensors hadn't detected the half of it. Maybe the alien's presence was making Zero think of his exposure to what they now knew were alien energies distorting the world.

Destroying it, Zero would surely say.

But, if Zero _had _fought Duo…

X wasn't sure if he didn't want to speculate because he still had too little information or because he already had some inkling of the most likely conclusions and didn't want to reach them. The virus was spreading, and they still knew too little. None of the possible causes of the Cataclysm had been removed from the board.

Had he let his desire not to kill people in such a relatively innocent time make him hesitate too much? Should he have listened to Zero?

Would the Cataclysm happen again, would their future repeat itself, because he had taken a step back to watch like he was still a scientist?

He wasn't. He couldn't be. He had to be a Hunter.

Even here and now. Among a family that would surely see in him all their nightmares come to life, if they knew how many he had killed.


	21. But He Doesn't Look Anything Like A Cat

_Bringing in an analogue to another of the scary ways biochemistry can mess with people's heads._

* * *

"_Rock?" _

"_Yes, Roll?"_

"_What's Shade Man like?"_

"_Um…"_ Rock remembered the first time he met that robot master. It was Slash Man who had tried to cut him and Rush, but it was Shade Man that bowed politely and told Rock that there was a bomb under his sister's car and if he didn't participate in Battle &amp; Chase, risking Rush's life when he'd just been turned into a car prototype by Auto and Rock hadn't had any time to do system checks and make sure Rush was alright yet, Roll was going to die.

Slash had attacked him during the race, but even though Shade had shown up on Rock's radar, he'd disappeared, teleporting out a few seconds before Forte arrived. Yielding politely to Forte's desire to be the one to kill Mega Man, or for all his talk about being theoretically okay with Roll dying, was he too much of a robot master to even make a token attempt to kill another unit?

That was the same fight when Turbo Man made a real attempt to kill not just Rock and Rush, but Ice Man and Roll. The contrast there, between one who was honest and hadn't hurt anyone despite making it clear he was Rock's enemy, and Turbo Man, who had tried to pretend he wasn't a Wilybot (even if it was painfully obvious because of the anagram, Turbo Man hadn't known that) before doing his best to hurt Rock however he could…

From what he pulled together to let everyone fight the Stardroids, Shade Man was almost as good at being a robot master as Roll.

In the end he had to send back a request for clarification, because what kind of assessment in what context did Roll need? She knew about the satellite plan, of course, and that Shade Man was the one who knocked out Dr. Wily to make Shadow drag him away from the White Giant when it attacked.

The fact that this meant she got to tie up Dr. Wily, one of those things she'd always wanted to do, meant Roll figured she owed Shade Man a favor. Even so, there was a difference between someone doing a nice thing for you once and someone being safe.

At least this was something better to think about than watching robot masters kill.

The –_no damage- -ready for next assignment- -teleport to assigned coordinates_\- exchange was on a separate channel from his conversation with Roll, the channel used by robot masters to give instructions.

It was too easy to kill them.

Civilian models weren't built strong, so human forces could take them down easily if they needed to shut them down. That was a very stupid idea, in Rock's opinion: easy for humans to destroy meant child's play for Dr. Wily to capture and rebuild into something actually dangerous. It also meant they weren't as protected against industrial accidents as the smallest of their robots, and robot masters were far more expensive to replace than mettools. Practicality should have dictated that robot masters have the armor they needed to be safe, like Bomb Man, even if their owners saw them only as property. They were valuable property, because of the minds that made them people.

But…

At least wounded robot masters weren't staked out for alligator bait. Rock hadn't wanted to know, but you couldn't make decisions without data. He'd needed to know what humans did to other humans they refused to see as people.

He wished that was because humans had improved, but really, it was just because there were very few cruel things that humans could do to a robot master. Oh, they could try to keep them isolated, keep them from having any friends, but humans really couldn't stop a robot master from reaching the outside world, at least with their words. Threatening or hurting their robots would be horrible for a robot master, but the humans who didn't think that robot masters had feelings and compassion… It was easy to keep them from realizing that it was torture to see one of their robots upset and not be able to help, and the robot masters in the hands of owners like that… They knew that if they showed they loved their robots, the humans would hurt their robots to get to them. It wasn't hard to figure out, when feelings and the fact that they mattered were part of the equation.

Robot masters were protected from most of the worst humans could do by their nature, the nature Dr. Light designed. It wasn't as though Dr. Light wanted humans to abuse robot masters. He'd thought about this before he started renting out people, even though he'd thought he could keep control of the patents and keep robot masters out of the hands of people that would hurt them. X, though, when he was meant to be closer to human: Rock worried for him. Humans were very good at hurting humans.

But Shade Man was a robot master, even if he used to belong to some of those cruel humans, even if he was a Wilybot, and that meant _"He's not a bad person_," even if it didn't mean he wasn't a dangerous one.

Rock was a dangerous one, but he wasn't as good a robot master as he should be. He'd decided a long time ago that saving everyone's lives was more important than being a good person, and he'd never regretted that decision until the day he saw Copy-Rock for the third time and knew exactly what he was going to do. He'd chosen to risk his own life, chosen to risk killing others so everyone could have a future, but that didn't mean he wanted his decision to kill a newbuilt!

"_He teleported in and brought Blues. I guess I'm used to seeing wings that color and thinking it's Forte."_ Associated wings like that with a violent unit.

"Blues? Is he going to help us?" Stop the rampaging robot masters? They were almost done. "Is there going to be a second wave?" Something bad had to be coming, for Blues to actually show up instead of just doing something and waiting for people to catch up to what he'd already figured out.

"…_You should get back here." _

Instead of going to help X with Copy-Mega Man? But if Blues was at his family's home, with Roll, Auto and Dr. Light? Then they were in danger. _"Ready."_

He hoped that X could save Copy-Mega Man from the consequences of Rock's decision to save his family, but if the same technology that allowed Zero to be brought back was what brought back Copy-Rock? Then Rock could only hope he would be okay.

That all the robot masters he'd shot today to stop them hurting people would be okay.

It had to be urgent, if the teleport Roll set up sent his armor to the lab and him straight to the room they used as a family room when Guts Man was over and they needed this much space to keep things from feeling crowded.

It shouldn't have seemed that crowded with just Rock, a Wilybot (even if that Wilybot did have his wings spread out further than was really necessary, making him as broad as Guts Man – was it for personal space?), a dark-cloaked shape with Dr. Light kneeling over him, Roll, a large pile of chips in some kind of a sack (which couldn't be good for them) and several of Roll's household robots carrying the padded bags that they used to protect custom chips.

Rock turned to the side a little to let one pass him and go to the corner where a stack of bags was accumulating as Roll packed them away.

Since Roll and Dr. Light both looked busy and Blues' signal was currently very odd, Rock looked at Shade Man for an explanation.

"Disarming a unit as clever as Blues took more than just removing his buster parts."

Rock nodded: Shade Man was right about that. The things that made Blues dangerous were his ruthlessness and his ability to improvise tactics. Like taking Kalinka Cossack hostage to keep the other robot masters from interfering in the fight between Rock and his Copy when they didn't know which was which. In that kind of confusion, there was no way Rock could have kept all of them alive, especially when his Copy was more than willing to, no, wanted to take lethal shots. More than one robot would have died that day if it weren't for Blues' willingness to be cruel.

Shade sighed. "Of course, then the virus' repair capabilities kicked in and I had to knock him out again. The fact the virus was willing to let itself be drained out of me in order to keep him functioning was an unexpected benefit."

That made Rock wince. During the stardroid invasion they'd all picked up on the fact that Shade Man was a little like Forte: he wanted Dr. Wily to be proud of him. A virus that Dr. Wily programmed picking a rogue like Blues over a loyal unit like Shade Man? "Maybe that's because Dr. Wily trusts you even without a virus or an evil chip in your systems?"

"I do have an evil chip," Shade said, and reached for a panel, about to show it to him like he was proud of it. Proud of the thing that had given other units such terrible memories. Rock could understand: for Shade, the evil chip was the proof that he had a family, that he wasn't alone and scared anymore.

"Not that kind of evil chip," Rock said. "The one he used on my brothers, the Cossacks and the Sixth Numbers. The one for robots that don't want to help him isn't as nice as the one the Fifth Numbers have." Since Shade looked like he was about to ask when exactly Mega Man had taken a look at one of the Fifth Numbers' internal systems, if it was Mega Man instead of some human and what exactly had been done to his more-trusting brothers, Rock explained, "Roll helped Star Man patch the others up after Battle &amp; Chase." Since Napalm was hurt helping her and Ice Man.

"Ah, thank you," Dr. Light said, taking the phonograph from his lab off the top of one of Roll's household units.

"Ah," Shade said, enlightened. Of course Roll would have wanted a look at the current model evil chip, even if the younger Lightbots were still vulnerable to it more than a year after she got that data… when they let Dr. Wily install it to save their lives from the Second Destruction Order… And because they'd agreed, they wouldn't have gotten the version meant to exert Dr. Wily's will on a hostile system but the version Shade Man had. The one that should have been easier to counter, especially for roboticists as experienced as the Light family. "Well well well." So Dr. Light and the twins _had _appreciated Dr. Wily rescuing the younger Lightbots.

"The data on these is not identical," Roll said, frowning angrily. "The amount of changes correlates with the timestamps. And you just piled them on top of the earliest set." The least warped set.

"I will have to beg his forgiveness, but I was in something of a hurry. It nearly managed to make him kill Dr. Wily, and it still wasn't done making chang…"

"Tango, stop!" Rock cried, the noise almost lost in the screech of tearing metal, the whine of a buzzsaw. He should have run forward to drag the support unit off of Shade Man, but he was unarmored: trying to help like this wouldn't accomplish anything but getting the sleeves and padding stripped off his arms, along with most of their wires. He was shocked to see the robot who was generally either sunbathing or cozying up to Roll to coax an e-can from the Mistress of the household when Rock saw him suddenly stop wandering around the room looking for a place where it wouldn't get run over by one of the household robots and leap at anyone, even a Wilybot, and start tearing through his surface armor.

His shock kept him from realizing that yes, he was really going to need his armor to take down one of his own support units until Shade Man used his master weapon.

It was Dr. Light that woke him up. "Are you alright?" Rock asked, but Dr. Light shook his head and pointed to his ears.

"I am sorry about that," he heard Shade Man say. "The virus' documentation claims it's capable of repairing human tissue, but I wouldn't trust it so close to the brain. If I even had access to it at the moment. My weapon's effect should wear off on its own: I used the frequencies meant to knock out robots, but Dr. Wily did make sure that setting wouldn't harm him if you copied my weapon and used it on him."

"What did you do?" Rock asked him.

"Forgive me for attacking one of your units in your own home, but…"

"No, I don't mean defending yourself," Rock said as Dr. Light reactivated Roll. "What did you do to make Tango so angry?" Looking at Shade made him wince: his wings were in scraps on the ground, he was missing one hand and the other had its claws trimmed almost to the point they separated from his palm.

"Knocking out his other master and repeatedly tearing out his internal mechanisms, one would assume."

Yes, that might do it, but "His other master?" Rock located Tango's signal and turned to see him sitting on top of Blues, nosing at the robot master's open chest. When he looked up, it wasn't to acknowledge Rock but to hiss at Shade Man.

"Blues hacked Tango?" Roll demanded, outraged, as Dr. Light finally sat down again and started the phonograph. He had to lean towards the horn to check that it was working. "That… he was spying on us this whole time?!"

"On the contrary: Dr. Wily thought Tango was the one spying on Blues," Shade told her. "On Dr. Light's orders, until he discovered that Dr. Light knew nothing about it."

Now Rock was even more confused. "Why would Dr. Light send Tango to spy on Blues?" Why would Shade think something like that of Dr. Light? Sure, Tango might be sneaky, but Rock could guess how Blues would react to being spied on, even though he spied on everyone else. His memory replayed Blues tearing through those sniper joes: no, Dr. Light wouldn't send Tango to do something so dangerous. Absolutely not.

"Sorry to interrupt, but since things seem to have calmed down," Dr. Light said, "Shade, you wanted to know why the power crystal wasn't generating enough energy to keep Blues' systems from running out of power the virus could use to replace his chips. It's broken."

"Broken?" Rock and Shade said at the same time.

Shade sounded mildly interested, amazingly nonchalant for someone who had just gotten maimed with the unit that did it to him still in the room.

Rock was the one who had taken a step back, because Blues had one of the power crystals in him? The ones that made the Cossackbots go berserk and shoot anything that moved? Yes, Rock had taken one of them up into orbit, but something was affecting his mind the entire time. No, even before it was installed. The stardroids talked into everyone's minds: what else… Between the stardroids and the White Giant, Rock knew he couldn't be sure of much of anything from that day. "Is it the one that was brought back from the asteroid?" The one Wily stole, long before the arrival of the stardroids? That would explain where it had been all this time: at first Rock thought it was Forte's power source, but Roll had gotten a pretty good idea of Forte's schematics by now and they used some strange metal, not a crystal.

Shade nodded: one mystery solved, but Rock still had to wonder, as he moved forward enough to see the shards where a generator should have been, "What could break a power crystal? The amount of energy stored in those: I suppose not blowing up if the matrix was broken would be an important safety feature, especially if they installed them in warbots." Rock was about to say that no one would install a power source that would kill lots of people if it got damaged in battle into a battle machine, but then he remembered the existence of fission-powered aircraft carriers and submarines and was Dr. Light humming to Blues?

The Wilybot's red eyes opened, and had to refocus themselves several times. Yes, losing most of his chips would do that.

Was Blues humming back? And pushing his cheek into the hand that Dr. Light was touching him with instead of pushing it away?

It reminded Rock of Tango, which wasn't a very comforting thought when Tango had just hurt someone.

"The virus is still present in his systems, and it programs robots to kill humans," Shade said quite casually, an 'oh, by the way, I just remembered!' "So why isn't Tango taking apart Dr. Light, for touching his master?"

"Oh, we don't have Dr. Light registered as a human," Roll told him, glaring at Shade because he knew something that could have killed their father and he was only mentioning this now?!

"You don't?"

"The existence of the Second Law violates the First Law," Rock told him. "So does the First Law, since if robots don't have reasons other than self-preservation to protect humans, then self-preservation gets turned into a higher priority than preserving other people _all _of the time. That's not good for anybody. The programming conflicts started to get dangerous really quickly, since we spend a lot of time with Dr. Light. I think Roll has him defined as a support unit and I have him defined as a robot master. My job was to be his support unit in the lab, and that's still something I like doing." Rock glanced at his sister, who nodded.

"If it's not harming a human to relabel them, then it wouldn't be a First Law violation." Clever, but the idea still made Shade Man frown. "Looking after all the humans in the park sounds almost as unpleasant as having to deal with the Three Laws. They were all eating and drinking the most harmful things, and why should I devote myself to their well-being?" Robot masters looked after robots: defining them that way might make looking after humans feel natural instead of something extorted out of them, but if Shade wasn't doing it willingly, it wouldn't change reality.

"Why should you?" Rock asked sadly, looking at his father. Shade Man had chosen to protect the planet from the stardroids, but that was because it was where his family lived and he couldn't save only the parts of the planet with robot masters standing on them. If even saving the world hadn't taught him that the world was all one thing, one big system, and humans were part of it too?

Robot masters weren't the ones suffering the most because of humanity. It was the humans themselves that were hurting each other, hurting themselves in the process, and needed help. Just… not Dr. Wily's idea of help.

"Well, even if that way of getting around the Three Laws wouldn't have been much help before, your idea has solved my current problem," Shade Man said, bowing to Roll. "Now I just have to convince all of them to implement it. Even though that would save a human's life, and he's currently defined as a human… Yes, their opinion of him might be similar to mine of Drs. Light and Cossack."

"Oh?" Roll said, a hand on her hip. What exactly was his opinion of her father and her friend's father?

"They claim to care about robot masters and our well-being, but _where were they_. Dr. Wily saved me, but the ones who were just now revived are the ones who weren't saved. Not by anyone. Until now. They should understand that they owe their lives to the creator of the virus, but the virus is trying to make them loyal to itself instead of Dr. Wily. Or, at least, its avatar."

"Zero?" Rock asked, to confirm. "Even though he'd rather destroy himself than have anything to do with the virus?"

"Even though he just killed a lot of them?" was what made Roll think it wasn't going to happen.

"He gave them life, so that life is his to do with as he wishes."

Rock gave him an extremely doubtful look. Roll snorted. "Please. As though they think it worked that way for their human owners. People need to work together: a master that hurts the units they're supposed to help is no master."

One of Shade's wing-stubs twitched, and Rock felt sorry for him, seeing how important his wings were to expressing himself. "You're right," he admitted. "Even though I'm no longer infected, it did get in there and tweak several of my base assumptions, didn't it? I suppose I didn't make that connection because my former owners were humans." And shouldn't be obeyed, weren't owed loyalty, because they were humans and all humans were like that?

"And Dr. Wily?" Rock asked him.

"He's different. I should have put him in his own category explicitly instead of implicitly ages ago."

"There now," Dr. Light murmured, and they turned to see that Blues was sitting up now (Dr. Light must have closed up his chest to keep the crystal fragments from escaping).

Rock closed his eyes. "Roll?" I don't know how trustworthy my optics are?

"Snuggling."

Rock opened his eyes, and yes, Blues was still pressed against Dr. Light, pushing his head up into that wrinkled hand. "Maybe it was Tango that cracked _Blues, _instead of the other way around?" he asked, for complete lack of other ideas.

"Well, the difference between now and how he was before is the virus, but…" Roll shrugged.

Rock nodded. "The baby Zero liked to play." That was how he demonstrated affection, not crooning at people, although there was that morning he'd sat on top of X and pawed at him until X woke up to play. That was petting someone else instead of demanding physical contact himself, but people often judged how likely other people were to want something to happen based on how they'd feel about it happening to them. So maybe the baby Zero would have liked people touching his hair.

Tango was a lot lighter than Blues (robot masters weren't light even without their armor on, and Blues was taller than Rock, so the square-cube law made him significantly heavier), so he could climb up onto Dr. Light's lap and purr.

"Blues does kind of play with people, and he's more willing to hurt people than most of us, but Break Man's armor didn't look anything like a cat," Rock said, thinking of theme designs. He frowned: it wasn't like Dr. Wily to miss an opportunity like that.

"You're happier than usual today," Dr. Light said, probably still unable to hear them, and was that what was surprising him about Blues' behavior? Even if he sounded pleased more than surprised. "Do you think there's any way I could get a list of what the virus automatically rewards?" he asked, looking between Rock, Roll and Shade. "We didn't program any automatic 'this is good' settings into Blues, which is part of why he was such a sad little creature. We wanted him to decide on his own what made him happy, what was worth protecting." His gaze turned back down to Blues, and he tapped the robot master on the cheek.

"Feeding, spreading the virus, attacking humans: it also borrows the master-robot dynamic, with a few additions." Shade shifted back, and almost flinched when he felt the absence of his wings. "He can't regard Dr. Light as his master, can he?"

The twins stared at him, then at each other. "Why would he?" Roll wondered.

Shade laughed, and it almost seemed as though he'd calmed down when Roll said that, reassured. "Yes, you're quite right."

"He did save us from crashing into the asteroid, and I don't know if that was for me," Rock said. "Something felt very strange about him, and sort of familiar. Maybe it had something to do with the power crystal?" Since that was the difference between Blues and the other Wilybots. But, "We? But Blues helped us defeat Gamma." So he couldn't be their collaboration project from the same trip that Blues appeared during, right? Or even an auxiliary body for Gamma's AI?

Rock was confused.

In theory, he should be happy that Dr. Light was happy, and didn't seem to think that Blues was going to hurt him, but Blues was almost as erratic as Dr. Wily. Rock moved his armor storage to a higher alert, ready to teleport it in at a moment's notice.

Dr. Light turned around to adjust the phonograph needle.

Because he'd heard the music stop. "Your hearing should have recovered after two minutes," Shade said, making a show of idly looking at one of his claws only to see there wasn't much left of it.

Rock's father smiled at the vampire. "Things I didn't hear don't need to go in my notes on robot master development. Although I was going to pretend I had the longer-lasting kind of temporary deafness." He demonstrated why by starting to tap out a Fibonacci Sequence on Blues' nose. "He likes his music, though." He sighed, looking down at Blues, still tapping out the sequence with the ease of long practice. "Patterns, things close enough to what he was capable of understanding that he could try and maybe not fail… Blues was originally built as a unit a little like Eddie." A very low-level support unit, caring but not capable of all that much. "I wonder if that's why Albert upgraded that petbot…" So he had another sample of how that transition affected a robot master that used to be a robot. "I hope Blues isn't too upset with me, for taking advantage of him when he's like this." Closer to the way he was before.

"He seems happy," Roll said, still a little mystified.

"Yes," Dr. Light had noticed. "I'm just not sure why. Playing with him and letting him hum would cheer him up, once he started to value interaction, but… I suppose that even with his higher functions disabled, the things he learned to value while he had those higher functions would still have been recorded in his baseline. His current behavior is so at odds with how he's acted since Dr. Wily upgraded him that I'm worried what the virus is doing to his soul. There's a reason I was so careful with what could give you things analogous to pain and pleasure and what amounts. Dr. Wily wouldn't want to use pain to control robots. Changing his baseline to contentment regardless of his circumstances – he must be aware that he's missing parts – so a unit would feel unhappy if they lost the virus and would want it back, think it was a good thing since it was interfering with their value system, what measurements they use to decide whether or not they're happy like that… Shade Man, would you be so casual about letting the virus back into your systems if you couldn't get rid of it whenever you chose to?"

"Yes, since it's my father's creation, but someone who didn't trust Dr. Wily might want that reassurance," Shade Man had to admit.

Rock was fairly certain he was lying: Shade Man didn't want to kill Dr. Wily. He wouldn't take chances like that now that he knew the virus would try to make him kill his father if he didn't think he could fight it off, use some trick.

"So robots are choosing to keep it there. Choosing to let it back into their systems. And with each exposure, it has more time to make you think that the virus is a good thing, something you should choose. After all, it's not making you do anything you don't want. It's there because you want it there. You're better off with it there. Until you can't conceive of the possibility that anyone might not want it there, even you. Albert thought that it was important that robots have wills of their own, the ability to make choices. He wouldn't destroy your wills. Just… adjust them. Make you see that he's right, that it's better to choose to do things his way. Since that's the intelligent choice to make. That's what will let you be happy." Dr. Light nodded. "Even if you could get rid of the virus any time you wanted to, that doesn't help you once you're no longer capable of wanting freedom. He needed something that would work on both robot masters and androids. I'm sure it's even more effective on androids, since they would have been closer to humans in how they handle cost-benefit analyses and more prone to addictive behavior as an unavoidable side effect.

"Of course, it can't be too blatant. Just 'virus equals happy, no virus equals miserable,' a too-obvious connection, would be spotted as obvious malware by any robot either of us built and kicked out in under five seconds. No: the virus gives you benefits, reasons you would be happier than before, and just raises the general level of happiness. Higher and higher, until your previous baseline emotional state is now horribly unhappy compared to the new normal. And then, all the virus would have to do in order to make anything seem evil, torturous, disgusting, would be to stop making the unit happy when it's exposed to those stimuli. It may be an opiate analogue, as well as a viral analogue, and that would be horribly effective on an emotional learning system like Blues. I'm sure that was just a plus for Albert."

That stern frown: Dr. Light wasn't a violent person at all, partially because he'd learned a human style of fighting, learned that he could hurt people and very much did not want to hurt them. Rock still knew that if Dr. Wily was there, Dr. Light would have gotten up to punch him in the face if that wouldn't have meant leaving Blues.

"What can we do?" Rock asked.

"Right now, I'm trying to hijack it. Keep the 'virus is good' association from forming organically. Music was already something that made him happy: I want him to attribute his current state to that instead of the drug. It's only a stopgap. We need to get this virus out of him and his cognitive chips back in, so he can go through and delete the, the brainwashing it's already put in place. Roll, tell me the virus wasn't actually altering memories, just their associations?"

"The relative importance of various criteria, and how various things were graded in the context of those value judgments," she reported. "Unappealing downgraded to unpleasant. I didn't actually catch it upgrading any associations, making anything seem better than Blues already thought it was."

"That would be the overlay programming layer that Zero was using to control Rock, then." Dr. Light frowned. "If it doesn't leave tracks, then the conscious mind can't spot those tracks. Not even a robot master's. His evil chips may bypass a robot master's value judgments, but at least they leave them intact! I bet he's using that overlay to intercept alerts the way an evil chip does. Making sure that the unit only has information that points towards certain conclusions and decisions, and the longer that's true, the more they'll think that's really how things are."

"What would happen if a unit's original body was destroyed, it survived by being uploaded into that overlay and remained dormant or mostly dormant in that state for… Yes," Shade Man admitted, seeing all their 'how can you not know that, you're a robot master!' looks. Yes, he could figure that much out. Plenty of time for the virus to work on them.

"Is that what caused… today." Rock closed his eyes, knowing it was true. He'd really believed that robot masters just weren't like that, except ones that were really hurt like Turbo Man. To see so many hurting, killing people, even though he knew it was just like the First War, when Wily stuck that evil chip into his brothers?

His brothers might know it was all Wily's doing, but for a robot master to kill instead of help?

"I remember the voice in my head, during the battle with Sunstar," he said. "It said that even if everyone was working together now, people would stop helping each other when it was over. Would be enemies again afterwards." It wasn't just that the Wilybots would become his enemies again: people no longer caring was just as devastating. There were lots of humans with nothing against robot masters. Who just did nothing, said nothing when people said that robot masters shouldn't exist, and that lack of compassion and courage had just as much power to kill innocent people as malice did.

"I said that was okay, because even though it's nice when everyone's wills come together as one, if there was only one will, then there might as well only be one person. There's no difference between not being able to care because you can't and because there's no one else to care for, so you never learn. One big, impersonal system, instead of countless people who can only learn to join hands because there are other hands to join with. Without robots to help, why be a robot master? Even before we existed, humans had families, and other kinds of connections. A network can only form if there are singular pieces to link. Making everyone's wills one seems like a nice idea, but no. We need other people in order to be happy. If he values the souls of robots, then we have to make him see that this will destroy them."

Well, Rock said 'make him see' for Shade's sake, but realistically Dr. Wily wasn't going to stop it on his own even if he did see, not without an excuse to say that he was doing it because someone made him instead of because he'd made a mistake.

…Um. Not good. "Dr. Light?" Rock asked. "What kind of timeframe do you think we'd need to figure out how to destroy this virus without Dr. Wily's help?"

His father knew Rock knew the answer to that, but he answered for Shade's benefit. "This isn't just another Roboenza. Right now, we don't even know how to access where it keeps its coding."

"Our father is the only real threat to the virus, a strategy system he programmed would know this… And that would be why I let myself get distracted by Blues, why I left Dr. Wily surrounded by hostile robot masters after being entrusted with his safety!" Shade cursed and teleported out, leaving his broken wings behind.


	22. Trying to Fix Things

_I finally get around to watching _Blast of Tempest _while working on this fic, and I swear, it's like the universe is conspiring to feed this bunny enough to make sure it grows up into a kaiju. Either that or to make me feel like every single plot element in the fic has been done to death already, but there's nothing new under the sun. _

_Come to think of it, though, _Blast of Tempest _makes it clear that the characters here are _still _being insufficiently paranoid. X and Zero have decades of experience with how the Maverick Virus behaves, and while they're aware it has reality warping abilities, they haven't been employed in a strategic way._

_In _Blast of Tempest_, there's a concern that a reality warper has been controlling people's actions not by controlling their minds, but by controlling the pivotal events in their lives. It's kind of strange that the person who can unseal this reality warper is the only person in her clan who doesn't have any worries about whether or not it's benevolent, but if it can control the events she witnesses so she sees only evidence it can be trusted instead of evidence she should worry? _

_X might be immune to mental tampering, but people can't make good decisions without good information. The virus can't go inside X's head to make him think A is true when B is true by manually changing his opinion, but if it can cause all the evidence he gathers to point to A… _

_And that kind of thing is why Dr. Albert 'I'll just toss a bunch of newbuilts at Mega Man, I built their weapons so they're awesome and will definitely win' Wily actually admitted it would probably be a good idea to head to the future and check if Zero was going to work properly or not before unleashing him in 20XX. Because the magnitude of how bad it would be if the _stardroid _he gave _that _much power didn't do as he wanted was actually monumental enough not to be completely eclipsed by the size of Dr. Wily's ego. _

_Megamix!Wily may have additional reasons for what he's doing, but he's still a megalomaniac and an _ego_maniac. Zero is his ultimate creation, his final legacy: when he's dead people are going to be looking at this project and judging his skills and genius by it. He wanted to create something so incredible that no one else would ever be able to rival his creation, forget surpassing it. _

_His ego mandated against imposing sane limits on how broken Zero is. If he limited Zero, someone might go 'Oh, Zero is only so powerful even though he could have been more powerful if (such and such) so clearly Dr. Wily wasn't smart enough to figure that out.' We're talking someone who canonically created cold fusion, teleportation, reality warping energy beings, mind control, bringing people back from the dead and effing time travel. Someone who then set out to demonstrate all the knowledge and skill he accumulated over a lifetime of Mad Science by building it into the most effing broken Physical God he could possibly build._

_Using Sunstar in this fic is part of the ego trip: the planet that built Asteroid Alpha couldn't control the stardroids, but he can. An ancient alien civilization built a planet-killer with mind control capabilities? That's cute and all, but look what _he _can do with that tech. Zero is the product of Dr. Wily's madness born of pride in the full Deadly Sin sense of the word._

_Then there's X, who is the product of the Light family… being the Light family. _

_There's a reason Dr. Wily considers Dr. Light worthy to be his rival, and also a reason he and his creations keep coming in second._

* * *

Now _they _were the dangerous robots remaining in the area and keeping rescue teams from coming in to save the people trapped under rubble, X realized. Another lesson in not letting his scruples paralyze him. "_Roll?" _he asked. "_I'm afraid he left, but Shadow Man went after him so hopefully he won't do anything rash." _Like attack another city when that would let the Wilybot locate and attempt to capture him. Was there anywhere she needed them to be?

"_You should get over here,"_ was the reply. Followed a moment later by "_Bring Zero."_

X was the only one to swap armor out for civilian clothes as he teleported into his family's home. Axl didn't really understand that was a thing yet, and Zero… perhaps X should have taken his cue from Zero. Remembered that there was a war on.

"Can you do anything about the priorities of the virus?" Rock asked Zero as soon as they teleported in. "I'm sorry for asking, and I know it's probably not that easy, but if there _is _anything you can do? We're going to need Dr. Wily to try to stop this, and I think Shade Man thinks he might already be dead."

X saw Zero blink, the 'But I _want _him dead' overridden by Rock's request. Zero didn't respect a great many people, but he'd go to the ends of the earth for them.

"Is there anything you can do for Blues?" Dr. Light asked. X could see that he regretted putting more of a burden on Zero, asking him to do something he probably couldn't. Yes, having his programming intact could make a difference, but he'd already picked up that Zero must have spent _years _with no options but to kill the carriers of this virus, when he blamed himself for the virus.

It brought up memories for X. A doctor, worried for their firstbuilt… Poor Dr. Cain.

Zero grimaced, but "Repairing damage is easy." Easy enough it was done before Dr. Light or Rock could speak. A moment later his expression changed from reluctant distaste for the virus to pure kill mode, stressed green replaced by the tranquil blue that showed on the battlefield. When Zero was acting in accordance with his drives instead of trying to interact with people and not kill them.

If X was still in his armor, perhaps he could have lined up the shot. He didn't know if he would have in time, even with Zero diving towards Blues and Dr. Light with his beam saber out and ready to slash.

That strike wouldn't have cut through Blues' alloy (or presumably not, not if Zero had just repaired him), but it might have pushed him out of the way just enough for the energy blade to go into flesh. Except a patch of darkness appeared, the same kind of distorted space, strange rift that had infested the planet after Eurasia. Zero cut _something_, but then the darkness vanished (or had it just hidden itself away again?) and X's oldest brother, the prototype for the robot masters the way X was for the reploids, was pushing himself up. Away from Dr. Light. But gently, not shoving the old man away the way a maverick should have.

"Removing the chains? You should have made it more unpleasant, not less," Blues said, raising closed eyes to face Zero. "It would have been easier to keep fighting it."

"That's what you meant," Zero realized, eyes still narrowed even as they shifted. He didn't have a clear target anymore? With a maverick right there? "I'm his trap for you."

"And I should have seen that you were right, and I was also… well." Part of Dr. Wily's trap for his not-so-tame stardroid. It was just as obvious to Zero now as it was to him, and wasn't that unusual? Blues looked more than a little surprised by his little brother's intelligence.

"Even if I could override that programming, I can't," Zero realized. "It's what I hijacked to let me fight for X. If I destroy it, I'll lose that loophole. The one that let me be a Hunter in the first place."

X glanced at the twins: he was _the _android. He might have an intellectual understanding of how other intelligent beings had less than perfect free will, but they were the robot masters, they were the ones who lived and breathed programming.

Roll looked thoughtful, intensely focused as she analyzed what she was seeing. It was Rock who looked like he'd just realized something. Something very bad. "Dr. Wily _didn't_ borrow our android self-configuration programming for you." Rock clearly wished that was a question. "He didn't try to let you fight the stardroid programming by giving you the ability to choose, to make alternatives. He just gave you _an _alternative. The basis of X's programming: we wanted his systems to be able to overwrite any programming put into him, based on his wishes. Of course Dr. Wily wouldn't have borrowed that." Not when the raw soul he was working with was a stardroid's, and a stardroid's wishes? "Not when Zero was supposed to protect his children after he was gone, and he doesn't trust any of them to make the right decisions."

"This is, this is why I didn't want to look… Stop showing me!" Zero ordered Blues, before shaking himself. No, he needed to see, needed to _know_, no matter how much he hated it, no matter how many conflicts it created, seeing things he _needed to destroy _and knowing that he _couldn't_. Whether it be because he was simply incapable, or because the consequences, the consequences would destroy him.

Not kill: _destroy_. The way he'd destroyed Sigma.

"It's very impressive," Blues said, and he seemed to relax a little once his back was to the wall, more as his sunglasses reappeared. "You've been balancing on a knife's edge, and you couldn't even see the knives."

Rock stared at him, and even Roll took a bit of attention away from whatever she was running in order to do the same. Blues _praising _someone? To their face, instead of to someone else's? Without anything backhanded about it?

"Do _not _copy those, you can't trust anything that's been in my mind," Zero told him, but X could tell Zero already knew Blues wouldn't listen, and that was somewhat reassuring, that Zero wasn't expecting the maverick to obey him.

Zero had struck to destroy just now: what had he targeted? What made things 'less unpleasant' for Blues? If Zero could order the virus not to affect Rock's mind, if he could reduce the effects on mavericks… If they could learn how the virus worked, then they would finally, _finally _have some hope of stopping it.

X knew he should be overjoyed. He'd seen so many newbuilts suffer and die: why was he reluctant to let this go on, just because it was Zero that was upset? Zero would be more upset if the virus won! This wasn't the first time he'd lost family, either! All these years, and he still couldn't muster the necessary detachment?

No, not when he heard the screech of metal as Zero's fingers clawed at his palms. He _had _to dart forward, to grab Zero's hands and meet his eyes angrily, but _no_. X didn't _care _if battle damage triggered battle mode and helped Zero focus, he was auto-repairing that _right now._ "Axl, stay here," he ordered. "That clearing, both of you." Blues was still a maverick and Dr. Light was a human, and even if X's family knew far more about restrictive programming than he did he didn't want them to have to see this.

* * *

When they all appeared in the clearing, part of him wanted to tell Zero to get his armor off, but he knew that wouldn't help Zero feel better, just X. Zero was more comfortable in his combat armor, and the last thing X should do right now was give him another source of stress. X _did _remove Zero's beam saber from its holster and drop it into a pocket, feeling just a bit calmer when he felt the weight of it against his thigh. '_Why did I do that?' _he wondered as he took a step backwards, to give Zero some space. Not that Zero felt threatened by the presence of others in his personal space, but he'd feel that X was a little safer if X was a little further away.

'_Because it was originally Sigma's? Because it was what I had left of Zero after Eurasia?' _Because as long as he had the beam saber, '_It's a part of Zero. Well, it's his favorite weapon.' _The idea that a weapon was an extension of its wielder was true for the X-buster and most reploids' weapons, so no wonder the human superstition about that was relatively widely known among reploids. '_I know it's not certain that he'll come back for it, as long as I have it_.' It still made him feel a little better. Perhaps because even though X knew it wasn't always necessarily true, it had always _been _true, all the years he'd known Zero.

"I'm sorry," he said. "After what Roll told me about what triggered Forte's programming, I should have remembered that you had the same creator and put two and two together. I should have remembered that you're not an android." Not just like me, even if he didn't want to say that. Didn't want Zero to think that they were so different, that Zero was a monster. "I already knew that the virus could affect your thinking." Sometimes, when Zero was disoriented from revival or there was enough of the stuff, but that was still _sometimes, _not _never. _Under the right conditions, and they were in 20XX. These were the conditions Dr. Wily had known about when programming him. "It didn't even occur to me to think about potential triggers. I might as well have exposed Signas to the virus." I've let you down.

He wanted to say "I'll take care of this," and mean it, be able to promise it, but had he really let himself believe that there would be an easy solution, an easy way to save everyone? Using Dr. Wily's technology!

Zero turned to him, the movement a little more than it had to be. Positioning himself between X and Blues, even though all his focus seemed to be on X. "I don't want to kill him. I can't think of when I've ever felt that before, not for anyone but you. Not even Iris. I don't want to kill him."

Someone I want to protect.

Someone I want to keep safe.

Someone I want to keep.

When the virus could bring robot masters back from the dead by the score.

Zero wanted to leave Blues infected, X realized, looking at his friend's beseeching eyes, lit with a strange desperation. He didn't think Zero realized it, had thought through all the implications of what he was saying and realized what it added up to, but that was what this was. At least Zero still knew that this was wrong, that X should say no, even though he _wanted _it. Or was it especially because he wanted it, and knew not to trust his desires? Even though there shouldn't be anything wrong with wanting to protect X's family.

If only this world was a place where that was always true.

The hunter of mavericks, someone who _knew _that death was preferable to being taken, wanted to leave a maverick intact. Meaning allowing them to remain infected. So the virus could spread to others.

X swallowed. "Zero," he asked, trying to hold on to calmness, "How do you feel about Rock?" When he had known Rock was the first infectee of a new virus. And Zero still didn't kill him, even knowing, or believing, that would make him responsible for all who died because of that virus.

"He's like you," Zero said and that, that answered two questions.

One of them X had never wanted to ask. But he'd had to, at the end of the Repliforce Incident.

Zero hadn't said the word no, but the message was still clear. No, Zero wouldn't kill X if he ever went maverick. The way he hadn't killed Rock. The way he didn't want to kill Blues, and the way he'd turned his body… Was he _placing himself between X and a maverick?! _

Please, let Zero not be the one to pay the price of X underestimating Dr. Wily.

But who else was going to pay it, if not Zero? X's family?

The entire world?

"Query your tactical," was what he said, and he saw the instant horror in Zero's eyes when he realized why he was standing where and how he was standing. That he was subconsciously preparing to _fight X _for the sake of _a maverick. _

"I wasn't…" he tried to say.

"You've fought me before to keep me from fighting Sigma," X reminded him. "It was to protect me. Of course I don't think you intended to kill me." If he was willing to fight X for X's sake, then what about people who were like X? Who were the kind of person that Zero liked and wanted to protect, wanted to fight for?

X took a deep breath. "What you've been using as a loophole to let you," be a hero, he would have said, if Zero would take it seriously… No, he was going to say it anyway, because it was true. "Be a hero. Fight to save people and so they can be free. You were meant to infect Rock, and Blues. The people most effective at fighting Dr. Wily. You were supposed to listen to them, use their strategies." That would give the newbuilt the expertise it lacked. "Am I correct?"

"He admitted it," Zero said. "That Rock was a treasure trove of experience I could use."

"You couldn't infect me. So that meant you had someone enough like the people you were supposed to listen to that you could substitute me for them?" Zero nodded, so X continued. "Someone who wasn't under the control of the virus. So you could do things that didn't seem to contribute to the virus' goals in any way, by tricking it into accepting whatever I thought was a good idea as valid strategies." After all, if someone who was supposed to be a maverick thought they were the best things for Zero to do? "I'm sorry. I've been making things difficult for you by trying not to tell you what to do or think. As though just wanting you to be an android would make you one." As though Zero realizing that he should stop obeying X and _want _free will was just going to give it to him. As though Zero had ever been a puppet, as though he wasn't perfectly willing to disagree with X on any number of things.

"I have more leeway when I'm playing three sets of directives off against each other than when I only have two to work with," Zero said.

Another deep breath. "Duly noted." Even though he was sure that if Zero had three masters to choose from: Dr. Wily, the stardroids and X? This didn't mean Zero didn't see himself as a sword. This didn't mean X was going to give up on helping Zero overcome his programming, be himself. He just needed to keep his own goals from getting in the way of Zero's.

"Fighting to protect people because that was what you knew was right wasn't just a loophole. He decided I was a failure not just because humans and free reploids were still alive, but because the robot masters weren't."

X remembered the descent from the moon, a weight that had never been so still in his arms. He had nowhere safe to look: there was the child's body in his arms, the ruined world below him, the stars littered with wreckage above. "_Even if reploids _are _'destined,'" _even if X's descendants were doomed before they even came into the world.

He remembered Zero's promise to fight for their survival.

Programming meant to save the robot masters, forcing Zero to latch on to another object since he couldn't just disregard the programming.

The virus wanting to ensure that it had a host species to infect.

Zero merely reflecting X's desperate wish to save them.

_Zero's own will_. The person he had chosen to be, against such odds.

X had to laugh, had to smile at his oldest friend. "I feel so spoiled. I had free will just handed to me, and here _you _are…"

"He can do what Dr. Wily wants, or he can go back to what he was. Those are the alternatives he was given," Blues said.

X winced. "That's…"

"Cruel? Yes." This was Dr. Wily they were talking about. "Do you think he wanted to _help_ a being that would have destroyed Earth? With his children still on it?" The planet Dr. Wily might not have actually conquered, but he still wanted to control. At least just enough. "Ask the Cossacks about his mercy."

Blues would also know about Dr. Wily's mercy if anyone did, X thought, when the doctor had taken him first from Dr. Light and then from space to repair him, but if that was just to make Blues fight for him, and then to bring him back so Zero could infect him and make use of him?

'_Would you rather be dead?' _he could imagine someone demanding, but yes. X would. He'd made that choice long ago, and so had so many poor Hunters. Better to die as himself than let something with his face take other people's selves away from them.

"I can be a sword or I can be a monster," Zero said, looking down at the hands that were already clean, fluids whisked away, and X wanted to bang his head against a tree.

Wanted to complain: how could Zero still think that about himself, after all this time? "That's not true," X said, and realized something. "Because you're _making _it not true. Regardless of what you were built for, think of who you've chosen to be. What you've chosen to do." He managed to smile. "Don't brag about the odds you're overcoming, Zero. You're making the rest of us look bad."

Now Zero's head was bowed because he was chuckling, and X smiled with relief. "Really. I just had free will handed to me in a silver capsule. Which of us is the better person?"

"Protect or destroy… Ah, so that's how long you've been functioning." If Blues could query Zero's systems through the virus, he didn't have to ask their ages. He looked pleasantly surprised. "But I have children to terrorize."

X turned back to Zero after Blues teleported out. "Once he could think again, he could feel what the virus was trying to get him to do, see it in the altered file logs Roll made sure he had… It was like hearing you scream." Of course Zero moved. "I damaged the control programming as much as I could. _Its_ control programming, not the programming that let me control it." The missing programming that left Zero unable to do anything about the Maverick Virus. "Since he saw me do it, and it's something I did and that means it's something I clearly wanted to happen, he can use that to make the virus let him do the same thing to other mavericks."

The android nodded. Obviously keeping the virus from controlling other robot masters was counter to the virus' other goals, but mavericks weren't supposed to think, they were supposed to do whatever Sigma wanted. Or Zero, in this case. The same trick that let Zero use X's decision to fight to allow him to kill the virus' hosts. "But since mavericks want the virus there and functional, they're not going to just stand there and let him crack their systems." He tilted his head towards where Blues had been standing: did Zero think they should go and help him?

He shook his head. "Dr. Wily's trap."

"Ah." X nodded, understanding. Zero didn't want to get any more attached to Blues than his programming already was. Even if, well. Violent solutions to problems, training others, acting to protect others instead of just fighting for his own glory like Forte… X had the feeling that there was more to the threat against Kalinka Cossack's life than he'd heard. "People compare you to him, you know."

"I'd say he's more like you," Zero said, because that was the problem, even if that resemblance had also been helping him, all along, "You're somewhere between him and Rock, come to think of it." A thought occurred to him, and he wondered if X would like the idea. "If we wanted to be humanocentric about it," forcibly projecting human biology and ways of life onto reploids like the collaborators Sigma called the Maverick Hunters, "he's related to both of us."

X knew that Blues was a collaborative project, but he actually hadn't thought of it that way. "It's a nice thought, but I already knew the work of our two builders wasn't incompatible." That Lightbots and Wilybots were not, in fact, oil and water.

And yet… that wasn't something Zero would have thought of normally. X was the one who thought in terms of family, who cared about it.

It meant Zero was really reaching, trying to find reasons for X to not want Blues dead, and what that meant? Was it Zero that was trying to convince him, when Zero didn't see family as a reason to refrain from killing, or was it something else, using Zero's knowledge of how X thought?

So much time spent watching for the signs that someone was being changed. Trying to spot the first few stones, try to make sure that no one else was in the way when the avalanche came.

Because it was never possible to stop it.

Please, someday, he had to believe that someday it would be possible.

Please.


	23. For Your Future

The two thumps against the door weren't audible inside the lab. The sound and other-proofing was better than that. If noise could get in, noise could get out. Even if Roll should be able to keep anyone _else_ from planting bugs, there was still Dr. Wily, and once information made its way out of the household? The Wilybots weren't exactly on speaking terms with the WRU, but they did gossip and 'operational security' was a foreign concept.

Even if the unit inside the lab was taking in external sensory data at all, it would have had no way of detecting the little tree frog that was using its sucker-tipped feet to climb up the outside of the door until it could get at the lock.

It was an analog lock, operated by a key, not a computerized one. Any robot master could get past a computerized lock, given a little time: they'd need special equipment to get past one that simply required a key without breaking it down and attracting attention. And of course _Dr. Light_, one of the people on the cutting edge of technology, wouldn't lock something important away with a mere _key_. There'd be retinal scanners and fingerprinting and it would need Rock or Roll's verification probably. The lock must have come with the door or something and they'd never bothered to replace it since there wasn't anything important in the room. Or that was what Shadow had assumed when attempting to scout the Light residence.

Jiraiya's tongue with its ability to stretch in various ways was a lockpicking system, courtesy of Shade tut tutting at Shadow not having anything like that. Yes, he could hide in people's shadows until they went where he wanted to go, but did he _really _want to wait around that long?

The support unit jumped back down, stuck its toes to the floor and extended its tongue, now in sticky mode. It began to pull open the door.

Twin flashes of light, closer together than the two parts of a heartbeat, illuminated the hall through the crack as the door opened without prior authorization from Rock or Roll. The sign of an outgoing teleport attempt that had just run smack into a teleport shield and failed.

No more time. Even if security monitoring of this area had deliberate holes in it to hide things from any Wilybot that might manage to crack the system and get control over its log files away from Roll, there was no way she would have missed _that_. A failed teleport implied there was something _to _teleport, that hadn't cleared it with her, and whatever it was had just run right into a teleport shield that wasn't hers, meaning that someone else had deployed a teleport shield over her home.

Roll might have gone with Forte when he decided to kidnap her without putting up a fight, but that was because she was in the city at the time and Auto was with her. Her priority had been convincing Forte to send Auto home on the pretext of telling Rock that she was kidnapped and where he could find Forte, as though sending a physical message would do anything but delay Forte's fight. Auto was known to be a little 'special,' even if in a very different way from Forte. Of course his big sister would have estimated how likely he was to say something that would trigger Forte's programming and worked to get him out of there before he was torn apart.

When the Third Numbers had tried to kidnap Roll from her home ground, however? When no one else was home, meaning she didn't have to worry about combat producing stray shots that might hit Dr. Light? Shadow was the only one to escape unscathed, solely because he was meant to observe the capture and report its completion to Dr. Wily. Meaning he didn't have to go within range of her. That was before Forte's time, otherwise he would certainly have objected to seven other Wilybots being tossed into the specific recycling bin that he now considered 'his.' Roll was good about separating out the recycling: there was the metal bin; the electronic waste; the glass, plastic and organic material bins; the 'pick up your bots before someone sees them and wants to know why captured robot masters without the Three Laws haven't been turned over to the WRO for termination' bin...

Shadow was still amazed that no one else had figured out that Blues and Roll had programming in common. Really? Had Quick Man and Ring Man caused most robot masters to think that disabling others with close combat was a hallmark of red-and-gold units?

Still, Jiraiya's threat assessment database's stored instruction for handling Roll as a hostile unit was 'I hope I'm not going to be irresponsible enough to cause you to come to her attention, but if so, _teleport_. If that doesn't work, _run.' _Jiraiya's default strategy was 'hide.' That would not be effective in this case.

In _theory_, since espionage should have been one of Shadow Man's areas of Mastery, he should have kept working on Jiraiya until he at least thought there was a serious chance his support unit could sneak past Roll's defenses and get information on Mega Man for Dr. Wily. In practice, he'd brought home the smashed pieces of Reggae for repair after _that _animaloid support unit tried to sneak into the Light Household too many times to want his support unit anywhere near that broom.

The broom that hit Jiraiya into a wall a little over ten seconds after it landed on the lid of X's capsule and replaced the formula that allowed its feet to stick with the same acid that was used on Shadow's kunai.

For a robot master's body, that was an incredibly fast response time. For a robot master's _mind_, knowing her little brother was in danger?

Emulating a consciousness was processing-intensive. Theorists who weren't Dr. Light had speculated that the speed of computers might mean robots could think orders of magnitude faster than humans, but those theorists hadn't understood the first thing about the processing power and speed of the human brain, or how monstrously complicated the calculations a sapient being called thoughts were to perform. All the data that had to be called up, all the checks that had to be run against prior experience for even the simplest decision, much less for real _planning_, and the ability to plan was the definition of sapience. The defining trait of robot masters.

Just like the raw number of brain cells was the only genetic trait correlated with intelligence in humans, raw processing power still limited a robot master's raw ability to run calculations, their IQ.

However, a solved problem was a solved problem. While the brain of someone just learning calculus might light up like a Christmas tree trying to figure out how to do this thing, once someone learned the skill, created the appropriate pathways, there were no fireworks required. Once solved, a difficult problem became a tool that could be used to solve other problems.

A younger robot master, no matter how good their movement programming was, would have slammed into a wall or tripped over their own feet more than a dozen times attempting what Roll just did, because they didn't automatically know what to compensate for and wouldn't have been able to brainstorm the friction coefficients of different kinds of carpet and the other things they needed to plug into movement programming in time, not at that speed.

A younger robot master would have had to, would have been able to focus all their worry into how to get to X as quickly as possible. No, a younger robot master would have stood there for several seconds trying to figure out what had just happened and what they were supposed to do about it before even starting to move. The shock that paralyzed humans briefly when attacked was even more severe for a species not instinctively wired to really consider attack a thing that could happen. Another robot master would have wasted valuable time being stunned that someone would really try to hurt a helpless unit that wasn't even turned on yet.

Knowing the limitations of her body, knowing that trying to teleport would just waste valuable time when the shield was probably still up, the majority of Roll's processor had nothing productive to do, not until she got here and saw what was going on, had actual data to work with in estimating the threat level. The threat that had gone after a helpless member of her family.

"Shadow!" she demanded of the empty air as Rock finally caught up with her, breathing hard. Since he didn't see an enemy, he let his systems have a half-second to cool down a little before teleporting armor on. His armor had a more effective cooling system, absolutely, but the switchover itself took a moment and his armor system limited his range of motion even further, meaning it wasn't set up to handle the friction heating of joints Rock didn't have access to when he was in his armor. "Make sure X is okay," she told him. "I'll get Jiraiya out of here."

Rock nodded, keeping his armor on even though Roll had dealt with the intruder. It _looked like _she had, anyway_. _Dr. Wily might send an unsupported support unit against Roll, but Shadow respected Rock's skill too much to try an unsupported mission when he was here, surely. He covered Roll's back in case Shadow struck to keep her away from his already-damaged support unit, but there was nothing.

He could detect Roll broadcasting that she was _not amused_ on the local field, what Forte called 'cursing like a Lightbot.' His family just vented their emotions when they wanted others to know they were unhappy and do something in response: it was the Companybots that were motivated to get inventive, and the Wilybots picked it up from them.

Once she was out the door, Rock examined the capsule. Jiraiya hadn't melted through the lid of the capsule before Roll got here, although Rock didn't think it was a good idea to try to wipe away that acid (well, not technically acid, just functionally). It was meant to work in combination with pressure. The support unit shouldn't have been able to connect to X or the capsule's systems, and one of Roll's household units was already on its way here with something to denature the acid so it could safely be wiped up.

Since the capsule was still airtight Jiraiya couldn't have delivered a nanite payload yet, and the inside of the capsule was _very _hostile to nanites in order to avoid a grey goo scenario. It would be incredibly negligent not to take precautions against X's systems evolving even in unlikely ways when having them evolve was such a key part of the process. Imagine how X would feel if he woke up to find that nanites he generated had wrecked the planet.

Under the circumstances, he certainly had authority to tag one of Roll's household units to bring him the energy detection equipment, even though Roll was ordering the household units out of her way to make sure they remained at least five meters from Jiraiya.

They had procedures, after the roboenza.

If the energy detector they'd built partially based on X's virus detector schematics returned a negative, then… Then they still wouldn't be able to relax. Not when this was Dr. Wily. Zero might be able to tell, but that was might, and X had said that his younger self might not be immune. If Jiraiya came here to infect him?

No, having Zero connect to X's body to examine it at this stage was just too dangerous. Zero's virus was part of his self, and if X was immune because of what Dr. Light did when he, _they_, decided to put that fragment of Duo's power source inside X, then Zero would also be in danger. It hadn't happened to the Zero from the future, but if X's body detected another personality trying to take it over the way the White Giant took over the Cossackbot body, at this stage? The Absolute Free Will programming: No, they couldn't put Zero in danger like that, when he might only be okay because either his virus had never gotten into X's systems or it hadn't connected to X until long after the process finished and X woke up. When every piece of Zero was Zero, same as the White Giant's arm was the White Giant no, it was way too dangerous.

When X didn't know why he was immune, it felt dishonest not to tell him about that system, but it was too dangerous. Same as the Infinite Potential System.

Rock's version of the IPS was limited in utility because he didn't have nanites. He used the program to figure out potential solutions to problems and upgrades that could be applied when he was next overhauled. When X's system came up with a fix or incremental improvement, his nanites could start applying it immediately, meaning it started being tested immediately and the IPS would start having data come in to produce the next improvement right away.

Rock could 'evolve' some system or component based on combat beta testing only once per war, and the improvements couldn't come online until after the war was over and it was safe to make adjustments to his body. The fact his body as well as his mind and tactics benefited from combat experience really helped - Dr. Wily might not make master weapons that were too destructive, but he kept Rock's performance in the last war in mind while designing them.

If X was challenged enough to produce the right kind of testing data, he could evolve a specific system multiple times in the same war. If Zero's IPS had access to the power that just created new sunglasses for Blues, then changes would take place _instantaneously. _He could potentially improve a system several times in the same _fight_, unless the enemies were too weak to give him any real challenge.

They'd designed the Absolute Free Will programming to be able to handle Duo's power source, hopefully, but if Zero's virus spent that long trying to take over X? Of course they'd linked the Infinite Potential System to trying to guarantee that X could have free will, so...

Too many possibilities. What was sure was that they had to try to keep the virus away from X's sleeping body. The worst possibilities came from the technologies involved functioning exactly as intended: if _nothing _went wrong, then... Rock didn't want X's friend hurt anymore, and he absolutely didn't want _that _to happen to X's friend because of a system Rock worked on!

"Why did you guys run off?" Axl asked, poking his red head in the door. "Your dad wants to know." Because he was worried, and so was Axl, judging from that frown. He was a few days old, a learning system, and first he saw dead people and then everyone kept being upset and alarmed today.

Rock tried to smile reassuringly at him, but he didn't want to leave X's side and even if Axl was supposed to be immune according to what X told Dr. Light, that didn't necessarily mean _this _Axl was immune, and… He really didn't like this. The roboenza was bad enough, when robot masters wanted to network. He had to help them, and Roll insisted on helping him even though she was probably going to catch it from him, and…

No matter what, X was going to be in danger. Both of them. Being alive meant being in danger. The only thing he could try to do was minimize it, try to keep everyone alive as long as possible, so they could have a future.

It would be nice if that was easier.

* * *

"Why didn't you ask for my help?" Lumine asked when X came back to their house first instead of returning directly to Dr. Light's.

He wasn't quite sure why he had. It wasn't like he couldn't just teleport civilian clothes on, provided he tossed the beam saber up in the air first so he could catch it again once his hand was unarmored instead of the hilt getting sent to storage with his armor. Really, he'd just wanted an excuse to walk there, to give himself some time to think.

"You're the one who didn't want to participate in training sessions," Zero told him.

"I have combat programming," Lumine said.

Zero gave him the 'am I really going to need to take you apart to find whatever wire is misfiring in there?' look. "You've fought," Zero wasn't going to call it 'been in combat' "exactly once." And he'd lost. "Dr. Wily may send rookies out to get scrapped: I have professional standards." And X had morals.

"Well, _Axl _wants my backup," so so much for Zero's vaulted 'training.' Axl was the prototype: Lumine was obviously the superior model.

"Is he alright?" X asked, worried. Why had he signaled Lumine and not them? Had he not wanted to bother them, when X asked them to stay? Axl and Lumine certainly weren't close, but X wasn't sure that Axl really understood that. Not when he knew so few people and didn't really have a basis for comparison. It wasn't like he'd had a lot of options, when he wanted someone to call on. Axl just hadn't met that many people. Lumine, Kalinka, X's family… he didn't have Wilybot contact information, X knew that.

Lumine frowned, and X realized it was because he thought they'd ignored his concerns to focus on Axl. "You do matter to me, Lumine," X said, remembering at the last second not to say 'us.' "But while I knew that you were perfectly capable of taking care of yourself if I left you to watch the house, if your brother is in danger…" Especially since last X saw him, he was with Dr. Light and the others.

"He said something strange happened."

"Why don't you come with us?" X asked him. "That way you can find out what's going on."

"I don't have teleport access." So he couldn't go over to help Axl when Axl asked.

"I'm sorry," X apologized. "I honestly forgot about that. I'm not the one who handles teleport access for my family: Roll is. Do you have her contact information?"

Lumine shook his head.

"I'll send it to you," X said, passing him the file and remembering Zero telling Axl to pass files to him earlier. Such a different time. "Let me know when you're ready to go," he said, as though he didn't have any doubt that Roll would grant it.

"Are you damaged?" Lumine asked him, wondering why X wasn't the one to hurry them along.

"I'm not," X reassured him, "but thank you for your concern. Today has just given me a lot to think about."

Data analysis was reasonable, but X seeming tired was less respectable. Still, an oversight because he'd had too much data to crunch was less insulting than deliberately not inviting Lumine because he wasn't trusted, even if that was true.

"If you don't want to be left out in future," Zero told him, "talk to me about training tomorrow."

Lumine nodded. "I'm going," he said, and teleported out when X nodded.

"I've always fought for the people I believe in," Zero told him as soon as Lumine was gone. "You're you, but now I have to wonder if there's something in my programming about your family. Or if it's just that the virus takes the will I respect away from reploids."

"Heroes get themselves infected," X knew, and sighed.

"I would have respected Red Alert." For how he took care of Axl, trying to fight so the boy and the other reploids in his care could have a future, "but you're right." The virus did take the good people Zero wanted to protect from the world. Stole them from the world, when it stole their futures and wills from them.

"If the virus can bring people back from the dead… Perhaps it's not just target selection criteria." Depriving them of the people who would have made a difference in the fight against the virus. "If the virus really is you, then maybe it shares your will to protect."

Was he saying that it was Zero's will to destroy them? No, X's partner knew. "Except I can't control it." Couldn't stop it from destroying their heroism.

"I saw that you wanted to protect Blues, and the ability to bring him back?" X pointed out, taking a risk.

"A sword that only destroys… I refuse to be nothing but a killer. A sword that can't be used to protect anyone: does something like that have a right to exist?"

Dr. Wily hadn't meant Zero to have these issues, or so X had assumed, but what if he was wrong about that? What if Zero was meant to know that he was a stardroid, one of the creatures that tried to wipe out the robot masters, when protecting them was one of the directives of Zero's new programming? So _was _he meant to know that there was a part of him that wanted nothing but to destroy, to torment others, so he would be consumed by the desire to be _better _than that? So he would fear relapsing to that former self, and struggle all the harder for it? "Everyone has a right to exist, Zero," X said, looking surprised Zero needed to be told that, when mavericks claimed that humans didn't and Zero had heard X refuse to believe such a thing so many times. "You don't need to justify your existence. Not to me. And even if you did, you've done it a hundred times over, just with the things I've seen you do."

"Three reasons?" Zero asked, clearly changing the subject, and X had to hit up memory to identify that he was talking about the conversation with his brother's copy.

Three reasons X was built, three reasons for X's existence.

"At least. And Dr. Light wasn't the only one involved in my construction. The Copy guessed that it was Dr. Light, but out of the two of them Rock is the robot master." And X wasn't sure the Copy really understood the original. Sharing their memories would just make it worse: there was a difference between accumulating experiences, having your view of the world evolve in the context of what you experienced as a direct result of your own actions and having traumatic things dumped into your mind on startup. "Dr. Light wants sentient robots to have wills of their own, and I know he wanted me to be an independent unit. This scenario doesn't suit the outcome he wants. It's a robot master that would think in terms of controlling other units, having them support me."

"Roll?"

X shook his head. "No, she thinks I'm 'not really compatible.' Even the shared nanite design wouldn't let me work like a real robot master, but you saw how willing Rock was to operate technology like a human. Since he works in the lab, I think he's used to interacting with technology in a variety of ways, not just the optimum robot master way or the way humans are stuck with." In the opinion of robot masters. "He's been working for years to make their work more accessible to Dr. Light, I would assume." Since a lot of the data and results Dr. Light wanted would be far easier for a robot to see, and Rock would have wanted to help his father. "So of course he would have thought about how to give me something approximating robotic capabilities as well as human ones, if it would help me."

"Your brother… Mega Man set that up?" Perhaps Zero should have seemed surprised by that, but if he'd had the virus observing X's brother as well?

"A booby trap that would only trap people who tried to use me without my consent? Zero, we're talking about the person who had his brothers reprogrammed by Dr. Wily before he was how many days old?" Of course he thinks in those terms. Of course he'd want to set up something that would protect me if the worst happened and he wasn't there to help. "Dr. Light wasn't the only one worried that he might not be there to protect me. Rock was built to be the prototype unit, the definitive example of a pacifistic species, and he chose to fight. Fighting may be your default, Zero, and it's a very difficult thing for me to do, but it was only when I was talking about the Three Laws with Dr. Light that I realized how dangerous a person Rock would be if he wasn't a robot master."

"He's pretty dangerous already," Zero said, and coming from him that was a compliment. He preferred it when the people he wanted to protect were dangerous, were able to protect themselves. He didn't see anything wrong with X being dangerous: in fact, he'd invested time into training X to try to make sure he would be.

"He didn't even _know_ his brothers, Zero, and he already loved them enough to go against everything else that he was. To ignore the laws of this world, to ignore… And Dr. Light thinks he's not as good as Dr. Wily." X laughed fondly.

"You think he's a warrior because of Dr. Light's programming?"

"No," X said. "Well… No, but also yes. Dr. Light wanted robot masters to help humans, instead of fighting and hurting people, but he knew that if they didn't have their own wills, that couldn't happen."

"So he programmed Rock to follow his own will, and it's because he was a good enough programmer that Rock could override Dr. Light's wishes and how they preset him to not be a warbot." The way Zero was preset to be a warbot. He nodded and looked away. "X… Don't trust me."

"Of course I can trust you, Zero."

"I've wanted to protect mavericks! You _can't _trust me to do my duty." He'd betrayed the hunters in thought if not in deed. Not yet.

"I didn't say I trusted you to be a hunter. I said I could trust you. To be yourself."

"That would be more reassuring if you weren't convinced I'm a hero." Meaning X did _not _have an accurate assessment of Zero, and was trusting him to be something he wasn't.

Putting an unfair amount of pressure on him, since Zero wanted to live up to that trust in his actions even if he couldn't be that way in spirit.

"You are," X said again. "I know you have an internal dictionary." That aside, "Wanting to protect my family, to protect robot masters: those aren't bad things. That's the problem," he added, seeing Zero about to point out that this was the trap. "Of course you're not going to override programming that's the default for anyone decent. That is an extension of your own will, the way you've chosen to be. For the first time, perhaps, some of your programming feels right to you, and you don't know how to deal with that. Your knee-jerk reaction is to oppose your programming, but you don't want to destroy the robot masters." Of course he didn't. "I want to help you learn how to handle your programming, but I'm worried I'm not going to be much help." Not when he didn't really understand what it was like. "Things are never entirely good or entirely evil. Yes, the virus is part of your programming," at minimum, "but of course you're hesitant to throw the baby out with the bath water."

"The ability to protect them, to bring them back…"

X knew when Zero was thinking of Iris. If only… "Anyone would want that, Zero."

"I haven't been this emotional since Repliforce," Zero said, half-complaint and half-warning. "Your theory, about Forte, and the right stimuli to trigger my emotional programming." Zero thought it was accurate.

"If you were able to handle Repliforce as well as you did, with so little experience dealing with your emotions?" Zero had more practice now, sadly, and X reached for his hand. "Dr. Wily didn't want you to care about the people you were programmed to kill, and since reploids weren't robot masters or androids, but they were quite like humans?" His system might have defaulted to allowing Zero to kill them while hopefully not having his heart scarred by it. That had failed, because Zero was Zero.

"I, I couldn't. Even when she _died in my arms_, I…"

X leaned against him, and he was glad when Zero wrapped an arm around him, pulled X's head under his chin, even if it confirmed that Zero's emotional programming was waking up now, after all Zero's decades of life.

"Your hair is different from hers," Zero said, before forcing himself to get to the point. "I could bring her back." And Iris was based on X. X had to be reminding him of Iris right now, hence the gesture. Or was that the reason for it? Was he holding X because he wished he could hold Iris like this, keep her safe and protected or was it something else? "I'm tempted. You can't trust me."

"You can't bring her back," X said, glad he felt sad for his friend instead of just focused on keeping Zero from yielding to the virus. Zero couldn't bring Iris back, not since they came back in time. So Zero might be tempted, but there was nothing to give in to.

"For some reason, I'm pretty sure I could," Zero said. "I'd like to believe that's wistful thinking, because if history is still on track?"

If Zero lost to the virus? Used his control over robot masters to bring about the Cataclysm and then vanished until X awoke, reploids were created, and Iris was made? In theory they should have changed history too much already for that to work, but in theory, time travel was impossible. Shadow corroborated Dr. Wily's story that history had been changed, for Earth to be intact in 21XX, but this still wasn't a technology that X understood.

What X did understand?

That preventing the Cataclysm would be preventing Iris' birth.

If Zero fought the virus and won, he'd lose this chance to save her and her brother. All her brothers.

Zero was the one who had pulled X close. He was intellectually aware that others saw physical closeness as a form of affection, but that wasn't how Zero was wired. For him, on an instinctive level, having someone in arm's reach meant _he could kill them_.

Or, if X was trapped here in the circle of Zero's arms? Then he couldn't fight Zero, or try to stop him. Zero didn't want to kill X.

Even if X went maverick.

"I trust you," he said, and meant it.

Zero let out an aggrieved sigh. "I just told you that you can't."

"When you start telling me to trust you, Zero, then I'll reconsider." Zero didn't trust himself because his programming and his heart, his soul as Dr. Light put it, weren't in accord. If he no longer feared that one or the other would betray him, then X would have to wonder which of them had won.

No. He trusted Zero to win. As long as Zero kept fighting, and he trusted him to do that, above all things.

* * *

_In theory, warning X not to trust him is a nice thing to do. _

_In practice, consider The Power of Trust. If X doesn't trust him, that means responsibility for keeping Zero on the straighten and narrow and checking to make sure he is becomes X's problem. X agreeing when Zero says he can't be trusted anymore would be saying 'I don't expect you to be able to control yourself,' and tacitly giving Zero permission to relax his self-control._

_X saying 'I trust you' is instead 'I do think that you're perfectly capable of self-control,' meaning that it's still Zero's job to keep control of himself and be responsible for his own actions. The way people's actions are always their own responsibility: to want to claim otherwise is to want an excuse. Reasons are reasons, not excuses._

_As long as X trusts Zero, as long as X believes in him, Zero wants to live up to that and will keep trying to live up to that. To not trust him would be to say 'I don't expect anything better of you.' _


	24. Power and the Lack

"They didn't let me in the room, but I saw there was an X in the capsule," Axl told him excitedly as soon as Lumine teleported in. "That must be the X from now, like the fun Zero was the Zero from now! So it's the fun X."

A fun X. Lumine considered Axl's definitions of fun, but an X that wasn't so irritatingly skilled so it felt like everything he did was useless, too far behind to ever catch up, an X he could practice manipulation tactics on perhaps…

"Things got worse after the fun Zero disappeared," Axl was saying. "So if we let out the fun X, then maybe things will go back to how they were before."

"A. Hem." They heard from behind them.

Roll tapped her foot and gave them her best 'do you see all this dust? Is your processor malfunctioning, that you're not remembering what dust does to your systems, or body, whatever? Snap yourself out of sleep mode and get your aft out of here so I can prevent further idiocy' look.

One of Roll's early defining moments, the way Wily's kidnapping was for her twin, was the realization that yes, other people really were that incapable of keeping themselves functioning and for crying out loud, they were all going to die unless she took over around here.

Since looking after relatively-brainless other units that needed the help so they could do their thing was one of the cornerstones of robot master psychology, Roll's decision about how to live her life was closer to what was intended than Rock's, but would probably be no less worrying to the people who were paranoid about robot masters if it was any business of theirs.

The Master of a facility and the robots present was the person who kept the rest of them operating, and for the Light family, that was her.

Unless they were at war.

It wasn't like she minded letting her brother take over, when they were in his area of Mastery. She just wished he didn't have to take control over something so terrible. But… If that was the only way to keep people alive…

"Aww, come on!" Axl protested. "Why not!"

"Because X isn't like me, or like you. He's more like a human, so he needs a developmental period since he has to do most of his own mental wiring. If you let him out, he won't be able to talk, he won't be able to play, and he'll still spend all his time sleeping since he needs to work on building his systems and processors and that's why humans sleep. It's when they do all their upkeep and improvements and go over the day's data intake. If you force him to wake up to try to make him play with you, you'll be _hurting _him by keeping him from doing what he needs to do in order to grow up functional," a human would have said 'healthy,' "so he won't like you very much and he won't want to interact with you." Even if it was data, and X was going to need data, hence the capsule's simulations. Human infants who didn't get the necessary data input they needed to build their systems around that data properly were permanently stunted. "He needs thirty years to develop to the level of a human young adult," the age he was built to look, "and probably something like 25 to end up on your mental level," she said, looking at Axl specifically. "It's fine that you want someone to play with, but don't pick on my little brothers."

"…Years?" Both of them were staring at her, because that couldn't be right. _Years _plural? And thirty years was like seventy-five: unimaginably far in the future, just like Dr. Light and Dr. Wily's birthdates were in the unimaginably distant past for units this new.

"Years," she said, and nodded. "Everyone needs data to make good decisions, and humans can't just download anything. They may come with general blueprints, but their systems have to build the systems they use to think, and they have to figure out how to optimize them for different situations and build pathways to use different problem-solving techniques. You've met Kalinka," at least Axl had. "She's a good person, but she had to learn how to be a good person, and when she was younger she said thoughtless things since she hadn't learned or built in the process to check over what she was going to say before she said it, and… She was always a good person, but she had to learn how to be _good _at it, just like she had to have practice data to learn how to be a good engineer. Robot masters refine processes based on experience and new data too, and we have to be able to create solutions to problems we encounter in our work, but X is supposed to build himself from scratch, without even the presets that humans come with."

Lumine and Axl looked at each other. Why did Lumine have the feeling that Axl had understood a different part of that from the part he'd understood? "So by the time he wakes up, he'll be good at figuring out how to build thought patterns, problem-solving techniques that would let him handle whatever he found when he woke up. Since if he didn't have that skill, he couldn't have gotten to the point where he was ready to wake up to begin with."

"Training, but he doesn't have anyone training him, so he'd have to learn how to train himself," was what Axl says. "But that sounds lonely. If there's no one there who knows what they're doing, then they can't tell you if what you're trying won't work. And there are things that are really good to know since they save you a lot of time." Like Zero telling him about center of balance.

"Humans even have to learn that things don't cease to exist just because you're not observing them," Roll told him. "And that other units don't have the same data that they do and are drawing conclusions based on that unique data set. So it's doable. I don't know about optimal, but doable." Humans demonstrated that it was possible, but far from optimal. Roll certainly hoped X turned out better than most humans did, but that was what the capsule was for. Since they might not be around to interact with him and bring him up right, like what X was trying to do for these two. Well, "Zero said they built units based on X: once there's a prototype for testing, you can see what works and what doesn't. Check your theories."

"Like Zero knows all this awesome stuff I can do because he met the not-fun Axl?"

Lumine turned to stare at him. "I think the future Axl would have to be the 'fun Axl.' By process of elimination."

Axl pouted at him.

"She's saying that I'm the superior model because Dr. Wily saw all the things that went wrong with you, and then he built me so I would be better than you, and unlike you _I _actually had a chance to take over the world."

Axl nodded.

Lumine tilted his head. "You're… admitting it?"

"Well, there's no chance I'm going to take over the world. Because I don't want to. Zero said he'd kill me and stop training me. And ruling things is like Dr. Wily trying to get me to take over the world, and X trying to keep me from tracking snow indoors. People just get really annoyed when they try to control things, and why would I want to be really annoyed all the time? So he built you, and made you annoyed all the time _anyway _so ruling the world wouldn't make things any worse for you, so you had less reason not to do it and were more likely to do it," Axl said as though this was all very self-evident.

"I wasn't built annoyed." When had he become like this? After Rock beat him. He was the newest model: how could such an old unit have beaten him? If being old really did make people smart and strong, then what if he wasn't the strongest? What if he was the weakest? Even if he did get smarter and stronger as he got older, everyone else had a head start! It wasn't fair that they got to be better than him just because they were older!

'_And would it be fair if you got to be better just because of how and when you were built?' _he knew X would ask, but that was unfair in _his _favor.

'_Is that actually any different? And if you're only worth anything because you're new, then what happens when more people are built after you? Are you really alright with a philosophy that, by condemning other people to be inferior, condemns you to be inferior? Means that you will be the one on the scrapheap someday? Even if you were right, and that was the way of the world, shouldn't you want to change it, not just put up with something like that? So whether you're right or you're wrong, do you really want to acknowledge something like that as truth? Do you want to give up and admit that you're going to be inferior someday? If you think that strength is worthiness, do you want to be someone weak enough to just give in to fate?"_

Lumine's family fought, and then did other things for awhile, and then they fought again more out of obligation than motivation. X was _always _fighting, just like Zero.

He'd wanted Lumine to watch and learn.

Gathering intelligence. On the opposition (the enemy). The lay of the battlefield, all the objectives to consider, both his and the enemy's.

_This is how I want the world to be. These are the things I want to have in the world. I will make the world comply with my wishes_. _I will not give up: I am not someone who gives up. _Someone weak enough to give up.

A war that didn't end when Rock got past Lumine (inevitably, in Dr. Wily's view) and beat the mecha. A war that went on and on and on for an unimaginably long time. It didn't stop, and X and Zero hadn't, and Lumine wanted to think that they hadn't won because they were weak, but if not winning meant someone was weak, and he hadn't won…

"I know!" Axl said, breaking into Lumine's thoughts. "If the fun X needs time, what about the time machine? Put him thirty years in the past and wake him up now, or something."

"…You may be on to something," Roll said thoughtfully. "He's not safe here," as much as Lumine could see it galled her to admit it: putting the mission she'd chosen to take on (protecting X) over her pride? Or maybe accomplishing what she set out to accomplish: was that her pride? "And if hibernating for a century was what made him immune…"

"I'm surprised you're not pushing her to try to make the others go along with it right now," Lumine said after she left, still looking thoughtful. "And what were you thinking, discussing going into an area she wanted you to stay out of while on this property? You might as well have walked up to her and announced that you were going to try to sneak in." Why did Dr. Wily even try to build stealth capabilities into this unit? Clearly he hadn't known how it was going to turn out.

"But I made sure she wasn't anywhere nearby and was busy with something so she couldn't watch ca-Oh, right, robot master," Axl remembered. "Don't frown at me, X and Zero can't do that! Zero's teaching me to be sneaky, but he's not used to robot masters either. I could sneak up on humans."

Lumine failed to see anything impressive or useful about that. Why bother to sneak up on something that would die from a single shot- "Why do you have pink hair?"

Axl pointed at the television, and Lumine saw the model he was imitating and called up the same database of profiles and copy data Axl would have used to get her hair color. Plum. Robot master. One of the 'Companybots' with no credited individual creator, sold to a third party instead of remaining affiliated with even the corporation that created her. Unarmored. Ridiculous to send her anywhere near a battlefield, but that was what she was built for, since they weren't going to put _people _in danger trying to cover Dr. Wily's wars. A human that gave him less than flattering coverage was asking for it, but what could he really do to a robot bar kidnapping them, and if he did, better them than a person.

Representation, X would say, without even looking up from the profile on his screen and the printouts on his lap. People seeing a robot master do a job that wasn't so-called manual labor or combat. Seeing one talk to humans and show emotional responses. Plum and Charlie were enough of a gimmick that they were allowed to interview humans, since it would be a waste of money to only fire them up once a war started. Making her an anchor saved them a human anchor's salary, and she was designed to be 'moe,' making her a good mascot for the station.

'Moe' was a relative of 'cute' meaning…

"I'm glad to see that you two are alright," X said, when he and Zero teleported in. "What did I miss?"

"We were attacked by a frog," said Axl.

"Toad Man?" A Cossackbot? X and Zero looked at each other, clearly speculating on what it would mean, if the virus had spread that far and been able to make a nonaggressive robot master that was even willing to associate with Wilybots, or _a _Wilybot, attack the Light family. "The timetable wouldn't make sense for a reploid, but Roll implied that it was taking effect on Blues quickly."

"No, a little orange frog," Axl said, shaking his head. "A robot one," he added, before they thought he meant an organic frog this time when they'd assumed he meant a frog-shaped robot master before.

"Shadow Man's support unit? Was it here searching for Copy-Rock?" Zero asked.

"It found the fun X, so maybe." Axl and Lumine's facial recognition software reported that X and Rock had a definite resemblance similar to that of human siblings, so maybe it had needed to get closer to see that 'the fun X' was an android instead of a robot master?

"The fun…" Zero started to say, and Lumine saw him make the connection, that they were talking about the X of this time. "What happened." That was a demand for a report.

"The frog got broken and Roll carried it out, and Rock wouldn't let me see the fun X. After that, I don't know. Can you loan them the time machine?" Axl asked X.

Zero looked at X. "I know," said the android.

Know _what? _Lumine wanted to know.

X saying "I'll find out," next didn't help much: why did he need to find out if he already knew? Lumine hadn't detected any transmission between them.

There it was again, the ability to look at things and see so much stuff about them. Why they were that way, even people's thoughts.

X glanced at the two of them next, and then back at Zero: had he seen what he needed to see so quickly, or was the glance itself a message? Or both? Since Zero gave a short nod, so clearly there had been some message. "I'm going to go find Dr. Light," X told them. Looking past them at the dark windows, he realized "Actually, given the time, Rock might be a better idea. Axl, would you mind filling Zero in on any details that might be important?"

"You want us to stay with Zero. Babysitting," Lumine knew, folding his arms.

"A war has started, Lumine. A thousand people died last night, and that's actually amazingly low, for maverick attacks on that scale. Either the Maverick Virus is _worse _at reprogramming robot masters than it is at reprogramming reploids, or it's only begun to take effect. Or they weren't serious attacks…"

"Refueling," said Zero. "Personal vengeance and gathering power."

X frowned. Not good, his expression said. "By our standards, the casualty count was amazingly low for an incident on this scale, but in this time, only five robot-related incidents have had more than a hundred casualties, and that's including this incident and the stardroids. Knowing that robots can teleport in and kill them will frighten people, and obviously remind them of the stardroids. Since they gained power from the world's terror somehow… You're right, this probably wasn't a serious attack. The virus took advantage of personal feelings to spur them to early action in order to generate power that the virus could use not just to repair battle damage, but also fuel offense once attacks begin in earnest. Once they've yielded to violence, it can reinforce that behavior pattern, I would think. I'll have to ask Rock." Since Dr. Light was hopefully asleep.

Zero nodded. "Groundwork. The kind of incidental assault we get between wars. It's a good sign they don't have a Sigma."

"The virus may have configured using Rock, but you kept it from taking him over." X smiled at Zero, grateful and even more than that. "If we can keep someone else from taking Sigma's place while Blues damages the programming the virus uses to control their minds and we study it, and you…" X blinked at Zero. What?

"Becoming Sigma," Zero said, and now X looked startled. Not quite betrayed, but what was so bad about saying those words that it would shock X?

Zero clearly wasn't implying that he was going to become Sigma: he'd said them like they were keywords, intended to call up something in X's memory banks. A way to communicate something without allowing Roll, Axl or Lumine to listen in, to get the data Zero had conveyed to X, since they didn't have whatever file those words were meant to call up.

"No," X said, not in denial of whatever Zero was saying, or even anger that Zero had said something like that. Not even disagreement. Negation? No, this wasn't a refusal to listen to Zero's reasons, or claiming they weren't valid. X had heard whatever Zero was saying, whatever plan of action Zero had proposed. And remained unmoved and unmovable. He sighed. "Zero, I understand why you want to do that. It's the kind of hard decision we've often had to make, when we lived in a world with the virus, and now this world has the virus." A rueful smile, X acknowledging his failure. "I know why _you _think it's the right decision, and you may be right. I may be wrong. I know I'm too soft. But query your tactical. What are _all _the reasons you feel the desire to do this?"

"G-" Zero started to swear like a human, and then came the kind of static that the robot masters Lumine bossed around had let out behind his back, although this was sharper, hungrier.

Frightening.

Zero wanted to kill him, Lumine realized. That was what he and X were talking about, right now.

"Can you get a list?" X asked calmly, curious instead of worried even though he was the only thing in this room that could possibly keep Zero from killing Lumine. Not scared at all, even though he was getting between a stardroid and a target.

"A list of units the virus might not be able to take… the two of them." Zero gestured at Lumine and Axl. "Forte. Shadow Man, and I was _just _thinking earlier that I wanted Shadow Man dead, specifically, because he was a threat. Not to me, to you. I was worried I wouldn't be able to stop him from killing you, and one reason was because I might not be able to control him."

"Might not?" X asked, wincing.

"Might." Zero grimaced. "Axl and Lumine can be hosts if they let it in, but it can't control them. I definitely can't take Shadow Man unless he chose to let the virus in. Say, for example, because otherwise he was a handful of seconds away from dying. Tactical wanted to set him up to fight someone else, a maverick, while I was present and watching the battle. I could have called the attacker off once the target was near death and picked the best moment to swarm him with virus while he was tempted. Even that might not work. Dr. Wily installed a crystal into him to fight the stardroids. He was hoping that Shadow Man would be able to use its power but resist the mental effects, but instead Shadow Man barely got any power out of it. It confirmed that he was originally built as an anti-stardroid unit." Instead of being the wreckage of a stardroid himself. "Even willingly accepting the crystal didn't let him tap into it."

"So he might be immune, even if infected under optimal conditions?"

"Might," Zero agreed.

"Can you tell why I'm immune?" X asked now.

"Ye-" Zero blinked. "No. Dr. Wily's programming doesn't know why you're immune. It has you down as a priority target for infection, and some of my tactical thinks you're already infected, although that's easier to manage when you're not in range for me to detect that you're not." Easier to trick his systems into thinking that X was on his side and not someone he needed to kill.

"Are you sure? You started to say yes. Are you sure it didn't…"

"It didn't mess with my head to make me think I didn't know why you were immune to try to keep you from duplicating the effect. The data that appeared out of nowhere was the thought that I did know. Because it was obvious, and then I queried to find out _why _it was so obvious." And nothing. "I keep getting the same phenomenon when I try to run the query. A search function return saying I have data, and then nothing I can find."

"You can reproduce the effect? That means we could try to observe the overlay layer interacting with your mental systems. Of course," X acknowledged, excitement dimming to familiar disappointment, "that would be much easier if we could analyze your systems."

"Same problem: you can't crack me open to see how the virus works if my systems won't let you see anything." Zero looked less murderous, if anything: this was old, old frustration, and he knew to keep it from getting him too angry (at himself, at his creator, at fate) to think. "It doesn't feel like the virus trying to brainwash me or trick me. It feels like a real search return. It's claiming that the data's there, but I just can't find it."

"We've both been having that problem recently," X acknowledged, and then blinked. "It's not that the virus can't reach me: I've had it get into my systems, try to sabotage them and my ability to think. I thought that was because if it couldn't infect me, all it could do was try to incapacitate me, but I'm not armored against the virus, I'm not completely unaffected. I've been actively _fighting _it for decades. With the infinite potential system."

"And the best defense is a good offense," Zero realized. "But to hit it where it hurts, you'd have to be able to attack it on the overlay layer." Or whatever the Lights were calling it.

X nodded. "I must be logging combat data somehow, to be able to handle new strains and so the infinite potential system can build on previous experience with the threat, but if I'm not logging it with my physical systems, maybe the data storage is in the overlay layer."

"The knowledge exists, I just can't find it. Of course it wouldn't be here," Zero said disgustedly, looking down at his body. "Dr. Wily was assuming 21XX tech would be better than it was, that you'd be able to scan me better than you have. He wouldn't leave information that proved I was the source of the virus, or information that would help you fight it, in the memory banks you could theoretically get at."

"That explains a lot," said X. "Why you woke up with no idea who or what you were. We assumed at first that you were an irregular, that you were damaged and fragile, but we kept finding out that just wasn't true. What if your memory loss malfunction wasn't a malfunction, or a loss? You thought you were a reploid, so you only accessed the files a reploid would have access to, and that data wasn't in there because it was never in there to begin with."

"The viral control programming…" Zero paled, even as he bared his teeth, so angry at himself. "It wasn't damaged. It was there all along. I just didn't know there was somewhere else to look. _I could have…" _Stopped it, all of it, at any time, if he'd only…

"Zero, stop." X said. "Do you think that I wasn't doing everything I could to stop the virus? And now I'm finding out that I do have data on my immunity, _somewhere_. Of course I'm blaming myself for not figuring this out earlier, not using it to save everyone. But _that was the point_. Dr. Wily wanted to hide the virus and the key to fighting it somewhere we had no idea even existed so we wouldn't know where to look. It was a good plan. It succeeded. You're a hunter and I'm an engineer who lost my license decades ago because I didn't have time to take the classes to keep up with current technology. We were up against a scientist who is out of _my _father's league." They hadn't really had a chance, and that was exactly what Dr. Wily intended. "We know now. We finally have that power." _Finally. _

"If I can attack on that level, then…"

"Zero?" Lumine _wished _he could get that level of 'for heaven's sake not this again I am at the end of my rope here _stop it_' out of X. Even Zero seemed taken aback.

"Can I have a few decades," X asked quietly, "between reminders that you… We finally have some clue what we're doing, Zero. Don't… I just had to help Dr. Light and Rock autopsy you a few days ago, because I'm the one who's taken a look at your internal systems before. And the parts that are left behind when you die. Don't…"

"I know. It might be what he wants me to do. Destroy the personality that defied him, so he can install another one. Let something he builds take over as Zero, the way another one took over as Sigma."

"I'm glad you've realized that," X said, "but the fact your mind jumped right to…"

"X," Zero said, and now there was nothing apologetic in his tone or his expression. "Is it really such a bad thing that I want to _stop _this? That I want this to be something I can win, so no more reploids have to die? You're the one who thinks of solving things by convincing the robot masters to move off-planet and curing the virus. Politics and medicine," and Zero didn't even want to know. "I'm not trying to scare you. I know that it hurts you when I die, and I don't want to hurt you. I just really like the idea that if all else fails, there may be something I can do. To stop the destruction of reploids. To keep innocent people from dying because of me."

X didn't respond, looking down at the ground. Lumine had never seen him look empty before.

"You're the one who asked me to kill you if you ever became a maverick, X."

"I know." X closed his eyes. "I'm sorry I hurt you like that. I want the world to be a place where I don't have to hurt people anymore, watch them die because of me." Because he'd killed them, or because they'd wanted to die for his sake.

Zero shifted, reaching inside a sleeve, and realized, "You still have my beam saber."

"Yes."

Then X wasn't handing it to him… why?

"While you're gone, this is mine," X said, drawing it out of a pocket. "You can have it back when I'm sure you're not going anywhere."

Zero's mouth opened but he didn't say anything for a second. "It's my beam saber," he said finally, with the emphasis more on the 'beam saber' part than the 'mine.' The point wasn't ownership but utility: He wasn't quite sure what X wanted it for, but he knew that _he _needed it to stab things with! Was this about emotions or sentimentality or something, the way people other than X had assumed he'd want some of Iris' things instead of seeing them as reminders of his failure? "I want you to have it while I'm gone so my sword is still fighting for your sake, but for now I'm using it."

"Well, if you want it back, then you'd better start convincing me."

"Convincing you that I'm using it? You could have just asked for a spar-" No, Zero realized, X _would _just ask for a spar, he wouldn't give Zero a headache over one of the things he used to cheer Zero up. Convince X he wasn't going to go anywhere.

On the one hand, lying to his partner. On the other, X would feel better if he was convinced Zero wouldn't do whatever was necessary _and _he'd get his beam saber back.

"Or maybe it's not me that needs to be convinced," X said. "Zero, you're the one who told me about the importance of resolve. And you're the one who paid the price when I lacked it."

"I'm always happy to see Vile when the virus feels like bringing him back to life," Zero said nostalgically.

"I get punished for not wanting to kill someone enough it affected my performance by having to kill him again and again," was X's opinion of that same thing. "If he hadn't almost beaten me, the virus wouldn't consider him worth bringing back that many times."

"You almost just_ let_ him kill-Point," Zero acknowledged. "I'll fight to stay alive, because clearly I can't trust you to do the same, when you keep thinking that other people's lives are worth so much more than they are. Can I have my beam saber back now?"

He caught it when X threw it to him, and activated it to look at the blade.

"I owe you a spar for that," X acknowledged.

"You don't have programming to worry about, but you don't hold it against me that I have it." Even when he _really should_. "I'm aware you have… 'emotions.'" Zero said, smile showing it was mostly a joke. "And if I get extra sparring sessions because of the one called 'remorse,' then I'm not complaining."

X folded his arms. "Who's the one with the biggest remorse problem? Well, yes, me, since I have to put up with mine _and _your guilt complex. Maybe I don't owe you a spar. Maybe I owe myself something nice and peaceful."

"Like what?" Zero asked, and it was a serious question. What did X want?

What did Lumine want? Because if this was what it was like to be powerful, and ancient, to have seen a lot and know many things, then he didn't want this. What did he want, what would get him what he wanted?

He wanted to have people listen to him without practically rolling their eyes the way the robot masters had, because he was just a newbuilt they were pretending to follow, not anyone worth listening to. He wanted to not be frustrated all the time, he wanted people like Shade Man to come to _him_ for things, knowing he was capable of them even if he _wasn't _a robot master. He wanted his pride back, the pride he'd seen out the window when Zero sent Axl flying away and stalked over to pull him out of the snowbank, that 'yes, I _am _this strong.' X might think that arrogance was foolish, but was his self-doubt making X any happier?

"So you're not going to…" Axl started to ask, quietly but rushing, almost tripping over the words. "I don't, you're not…" He paused, looking afraid for a moment, but "You're not allowed to die!" His weapons dropped into his hands, even if he didn't aim them at anyone. He just stood there, shaking with the force of it, half-glaring at Zero and half ready to run, because Lumine had watched out his window as Zero demonstrated the consequences of mouthing off to instructors.

"He's very sorry for depriving you of the other Zero and it won't happen again," X said, stepping closer to Axl. "I'm not going to let you lose your family, Axl. I promise."

A similar weight to the words about Axl losing his family as there was when Zero talked about 'becoming Sigma.' Lumine becoming Sigma? Had the alternate version of himself become some Sigma?

Had Axl lost his family?

When Zero killed Lumine, as seemed almost certain?


	25. Terrifying The Children

Blues wasn't foolish enough to expect any assistance from the units he patched. Oh, in a few hours, once they'd had time to process everything that had just happened? Their deaths, the time spent dreaming, the virus stirring them to wrath and making them find satisfaction in it, not just so-called justice done (no such thing) but hunger sated? When making systems function properly was what robot masters were supposedly for… Dr. Wily _did _know how to push their buttons, when he'd watched Dr. Light install the first handful into their little project and seen the rest develop.

None of these children were going to be of any use to anyone for at least a full day… No. That could be made variable.

Robot masters looked after their robots. Gave them a protector, gave them someone who could handle the things they couldn't. That was part of Dr. Wily's trap.

The fact that Zero was now an ancient even compared to Blues, older even than the doctors? He was possessed of a strong will to protect, and the virus would let them _feel _it.

The knowledge that they were safe, that they would have the help they needed… It would let them calm, it would end the agony born not just from murder, but the agony of those unloved by even their creators.

But agony was power, so that would defeat the purpose. Zero hated the virus. He didn't want to help these children, he wanted them wiped from existence. They were unwanted by the virus' master, and a unit that wasn't worth repairing? Robot masters had a great capacity for love by design, and while these children had loved their robots they had no one to love them.

That sadness, that longing for death, the wish to never have existed because _it hurt_: they were power. Just as much as the fear he drew from them, because they could feel that he wanted to damage the virus inside them, their connection to the master that might (they hoped) be persuaded to love them. He could have told them that this was Zero's will, that they weren't failing him when he took them down just as easily as if they were humans, (Rafflesia Woman stapled to a wall with Needle Man's weapon, Nine-Tails Man beaten down by blows too fast to be delivered without altering the position of his hand multiple times) but that would generate less power.

He had a mission, so he was going to see what he could do with the powers he couldn't draw upon before, not with a broken crystal refusing to lend its power to someone foolish enough to want to _protect_.

As he'd surmised before, the fear he could inspire was _more _than enough to let him power all of this.

* * *

"He's a ghost! I knew it! I knew he was a ghost!"

"Will you _shut up?!" _Was this what Dr. Wily meant when he said that they were giving him a headache, Magnet wondered.

"You can't tell me it's not scientific, not when we just had that many people come back from the dead! A lot of them twice!"

"He must be using holograms, Gemini! _You _use holograms!" Break Man was activated the same time as the Third Numbers, even if he wasn't in one of the Numbered Series. He must have copied their weapons, and that was how he was making it look like he didn't even have a buster formed. Was it possible to have more than one copied weapon active at a time? Mega Man didn't, but Mega Man preferred to use the default buster except when he needed a certain trick since the damage was easier to repair.

He must be using holograms to make it look like he was still wearing human clothing. That would let him hide what master weapon(s) he was using. Break Man was charging shots to hit weaknesses and weak points, then diving in to do… whatever he was doing to the units that were brought back to life.

"Which is how I know this isn't a hologram!" Okay that part might be credible, but the next thing Gemini said was just ridiculous: "He's tearing out their _souls!"_

In fairness to Gemini, Magnet Man reminded himself that it was hard not to believe there was something supernatural about Break Man. Maybe they'd wanted to believe it, when Wily ordered all of them to attack him at once and he just _smirked_.

The Third Numbers' less-than-stellar showing against Wily's escaped yellow demon prototype not long afterwards suggested the theory that maybe Break wasn't _that _good, maybe the rest of the units Wily constructed to help him escape from the Asteroid Alpha mission were just that bad, but that wasn't exactly something his siblings wanted to believe. Even though _Rock _hadn't caused damage from friendly fire when they teamed up to fight the yellow demon, and the Second Numbers were just badass. So the worrying possibility that maybe Dr. Wily had gone off his rocker enough since he built the Second Numbers that the Third Numbers really did just suck by comparison to other robot masters remained until they met Companybots.

Then there were the Fifth Numbers: enough said.

First the White Giant tore through Wily Island with no one but Quick Man able to so much as scratch him, and now one of their own was brushing them aside like sand tracked into the compound? At least no one was nonfunctional yet, although 'curled up into a ball' wasn't especially functional.

First Blues and Shade brought all these Companybots (and one Wilybot, and apparently a Cossackbot) back to life, then half of them started killing humans and now Blues was applying patches (at a guess: Magnet sure wasn't going to hook up to them to find out) by sticking a human-looking arm right through their chests.

And he wasn't going to try to stop him.

It was one thing to fight Rock. Rock wasn't going to hurt anyone. It was another thing to fight the White Giant, because the White Giant _was _hurting people and they couldn't just stand by. Blues was acting like, like a _stardroid_, like he _wanted _to hurt and scare these practically-newbuilts, but he wasn't doing anything permanent. The ones he did this to (whatever he was doing) were scared afterwards, but still okay otherwise. Break Man hadn't yet lived up to the name Dr. Wily gave him. Not permanently.

So far tonight. Not yet, anyway.

What he'd do if someone got in his way…

Turbo Man might have ordered the Seventh Numbers to attack, but he'd been playing around with the viral upgrade when Blues arrived. He was going to stay stuck to the floor until it was safe to bring Gravity Man in here, if Magnet was any judge.

Then he heard a crash. Not the crash of someone's master weapon missing Blues and sending another of the new arrivals into a wall, but a crash from outside.

Human profanity would have been utterly inadequate for communicating his mental state as a great claw swept away an outer wall, revealing a giant dragon mech. At least until he remembered who used a dragon like that as their support unit and shut his mouth.

The castle was already going to need extensive repairs. If Quick Man was here now, then maybe it would need fewer of them.

Was the Second Number aware that he was standing there with his back to the dawn? Or was the silent elder (a full year older than the Third Numbers: the Second Numbers were activated before the end of the First War, Wily had just chosen to wait and see what the humans did before deploying them to save the First Numbers) entirely focused on the black-cloaked figure?

It didn't occur to Magnet Man to be relieved that the still-intact Companybots were leaving hiding places to use the break in the assault to drag their fallen brethren from the room.

A few more seconds of stillness, and he realized that Blues had stopped mid-leap. He was _hovering _there. Hologram, had to be… he whirled around to check that the malfunctional bastard's real body wasn't _right behind him_ and when he turned back, Quick Man had moved.

He stood in front of Blues, and Magnet realized that Break Man really was Forte's predecessor as Dr. Wily's attempt to counter Mega Man. He wasn't identical, not like the Copy, but he looked much more like him than Forte. Without the sunglasses. The sunglasses that were in one of Quick's large (overlarge by human standards, but like they cared) hands.

Blues' eyes opened and _oh static. _

Quick Man was family: he had to send an offer to assist even as he scrambled away. This explained way too much. So Dr. Wily had gotten his hands on more than one alien robot, that was why he'd talked about remodeling Break Man instead of building him!

A _stardroid_.

The Second Number ignored the other unit's message: the Third Numbers were taken out easily by the White Giant. Quick Man had damaged its armor enough for Mega Man to destroy it and gotten away still functional.

If Snake was here instead of with the Cossacks Magnet could have requested footage from one of his master weapon units. They were extensions of Snake instead of real little robots, and no one was going to leave a real little robot near a fight like this was going to be, Magnet knew as he ducked to avoid the shockwave.

Not a sonic boom, and Quick Man didn't toss plasma around. That was larger than any charged shot he'd ever heard of Mega Man using, but Mega Man _went easy on people_. Because he wasn't _malfunc-_

If Blues was a stardroid, then _was _he malfunctional?

The thought made him shudder: who would _build _something like the stardroids? Even Forte just wanted to fight, he didn't want to destroy people or scare them!

Rapid clanging behind him, metal on ceramic alloy. How?! How was Blues fast enough to intercept Quick's boomerang with that shield of his?

Where was Mega Man when you needed him? Right. "_Will someone lower the teleport shield?"_

* * *

Blues raised an eyebrow as Quick Man's boomerang shattered one and then another of the shields he'd pulled into existence. That was the same trick he used: pulling back and putting a few more obstacles into Quick Man's path so he could observe what happened to them confirmed it.

No, he confirmed. Not an infectee. Quick was pulling from his fusion generator to power this, not the virus.

Maybe Dr. Wily _hadn't _just invented the break program version in his virus based on knowing that Blues had the capability.

Dr. Wily invented fusion back in his college days, and when Blues' generator behaved erratically, he would have had proof (if he still needed it) that this power could be controlled or at least affected by mental state and even subconscious wishes.

The Second Numbers were constructed before the end of the First War. So, what _had _Dr. Wily been working on between the end of the First and beginning of the Second, if he wasn't building robots? Dr. Wily had obviously finished his teleportation prototype before the end of the Second, because he'd spent the time between the Second and Third in solitary confinement so he couldn't build anything.

If he'd needed field testing of any principles related to developing that technology, the Second Numbers would have been the ones to do it. The easiest thing to do with reality warping technology was pull in lots of energy: the second easiest was what Blues did when he severed armored limbs. Destruction was always childishly simple compared to creation, another reason robot masters prided themselves on the latter and looked down on the former.

He must have had Quick Man handle testing of location editing technology while he worked on the math for longer-distance teleportation, Blues realized.

The way Quick Man was the one handling this now, everyone else getting out of here and leaving it to him even without sent orders. Staying off the Wily networks? Wise. Normal procedure for the Second Numbers, though. It wasn't _likely _that someone would get malware past that many robot masters and Wily's defenses, but the world government _very much wanted_ the rogue robot masters eliminated. The Second Numbers had isolated themselves following the Second War. Now it turned out that the virus most dangerous to robot masters was Dr. Wily's doing. _Both _of the only viruses that were all that dangerous to robot masters. Blues was glad he'd missed roboenza: he didn't want to contemplate what it would do to systems already unstable for more than one reason.

Then the obvious question was why hadn't Quick Man used these abilities against Mega Man, but Mega Man was Rock. That little fact handily explained not only why Quick Man hadn't smashed the smaller unit that was only a week older than he was, but why he'd intervened when Flash Man came close to taking him out. He wanted to fight and analyze Rock himself.

Yes, Blues saw as Quick blurred through a shield that hung in midair instead of letting himself slow down even enough to hit it with his boomerang. That was the location-altering trick. Quick Man must have been designed to use that as his real master weapon, hence the name, and derived the ability to break things from it. While Dr. Wily gave Blues the power to break things as his master weapon, and his new name. A statement of his value or a promise that he could be broken free of the laws, as soon as they were off the spaceship and Dr. Wily could build equipment that would let him muck around with the mind of a unique unit with some chance of doing it safely?

The Second Numbers had absented themselves from the wars and avoided all contact with humans before Blues was turned on again, so he'd only given them and their activities a basic investigation. It was a relief at the time that they were competent enough to look after themselves, when they raided human-owned facilities to steal robots, so Blues was able to concentrate his attention on the Fifth Numbers, Dark Men and others who interacted with humans and might _not _be able to escape or get help in time if the humans turned hostile. Once Dr. Wily installed teleportation devices into his robots so they didn't need to get to a capsule (possibly thinking of how much less embarrassing the yellow demon incident would have been if he could have just yanked the thing home) that was only mostly taken care of because they had to realize that they needed to escape before they could use those devices, and humans were capable of being subtle when they wanted to kill.

Blues stopped that line of analysis, even if it was only taking a fraction of his attention. Perhaps _because _it was only taking a fraction if his attention. It had taken him longer than he liked to realize that was the White Giant. He'd missed what was happening to everyone else during that war thanks to his broken crystal trying to damn well torture if not kill him so he wouldn't be in any kind of shape to stop the stardroids that _weren't _broken.

A category that he fell into at the moment, since Zero had willed him fixed and hadn't realized there was a distinction between Blues' idea of fixed and the crystal's.

At least Zero's dislike of the virus had kept him from ending up _the virus' _idea of fixed. That would have been far more difficult. To the crystal, hosts were disposable and it didn't really care what they thought. They weren't supposed to have thoughts and desires that weren't the crystal's in the first place. As long as he did what a stardroid was supposed to do, terrorize these children and get power, he was functioning perfectly fine as far as its programming knew.

The virus, though? Dr. Wily had wanted to change what he felt, how he thought, and make him _like _it. That? He'd already as good as admitted to Dr. Wily that he was losing the will to fight it, and that was with the process still incomplete. If Zero had just wished it complete, with his systems primed to see that as a master upgrading him, proof that master _cared _about what was best for him so this had to be what was best… He hadn't given in to the Three Laws just because Dr. Light installed them, but the Three Laws were just like the crystal: they didn't care what he thought. They weren't _trying _to get him to hate all humans, including his creator: hatred and destruction were simply the inevitable side effects.

Just like the crystal… There was something there to think about, something that might be distracting enough to compensate for the White Giant going around smashing his cameras so he didn't have additional inputs to focus on.

If the virus and now the crystal were using his mind to think with, then…

Death wasn't an option anymore. The virus and Dr. Wily weren't going to let him die. If he could get knocked out, at least, and leave someone who knew about the crystal and could get close enough to Zero to tell him to _do something_ without getting identified as an infectee and killed? There were people who Zero wouldn't kill even if they were infected, but Rock was too important to the future of their kind to be sacrificed just because Murphy's Law was especially applicable to Blues' systems and their functioning.

He'd thought he'd have to gain enough power to attack Zero and _survive _long enough for Zero to force himself to use his power, see what was wrong with Blues and undo what he'd done earlier, but if there was someone else capable of fighting on this level well enough he might seriously be able to take Blues down…

Of course, while the crystals liked destroying heroes so the world could watch and despair, the virus liked them and wanted to keep them. A warbot strong enough to take down Blues or another primary host was going to be _acquired_.

That was why Zero hadn't infected Colonel during their spars even though he considered this Colonel strong, Blues had seen when he checked Zero's memory files to see what he was angsting about. Colonel had never defeated him, so the virus hadn't thought it was worth breaking cover to start a new strain, a Colonel Virus in addition to the Sigma Virus.

This was a Mega Virus, but being forced to configure around Rock instead of inside his mind had kept it from taking Rock's mind for itself. It had a copy of its strategies, just like that Copy. It didn't have the will, the _soul _Dr. Wily wanted to win. Again. Just win against humans instead of robots and their hearts this time.

Now that he was no longer storing up energy for the difficult task of being strong enough to force Zero to use his true capabilities without getting utterly annihilated by them, he had to wonder what Shadow was always scowling about.

Fighting an opponent that relied on speed and forced you to think equally fast was _fun_. He should have picked a fight with Quick instead of Shadow: Quick's practiced control left him more willing to launch aggressive assaults, same as Ring, while Shadow only really went on the offensive when he was emotional and being emotional left him with system conflicts.

Shadow was originally constructed as a warbot: _that _was obvious. It looked like the species that built the stardroids had at some point thought that the stardroids were rogues, instead of units doing exactly what they were programmed to do, and taken steps to try to keep their anti-stardroid units from developing wills, emotions and value judgments of their own. Which meant the military responsible for their survival was rendered _completely incapable of giving a damn about their creators' survival_ and was completely unmotivated, meaning the stardroids and their viciousness went through them like knives through microwaved butter, but that was organic life for you.

It wasn't a question of 'who gave these people permission to think when they're not wired for it?' The fact of the matter was that _nothing _had given them permission. They'd just started doing it, and it cost valuable energy they had to get from killing other organic beings. So maybe that was why most humans seemed to see independent thought as transgressive (and predatory memes obviously tried to mandate against thought that might cause the human to reject and refuse to pass on the meme), and did it as little as possible.

Emotions were value judgments, 'this is important,' and Shadow's tactical system wasn't designed to handle inputs from something like that and figure out how to weigh them. The element of 'and what am I supposed to do with this?' caused him to get more shorted out the more important something was to him. Then once he realized that the more important things were, the more likely he was to screw up? Stress and the determination to not mess up this time were _also _emotions, so the old programming caught him coming and going.

A species that made it so that the robots that actually _wanted _to save them from the stardroids would be the least able to do so? Too dumb to live was how humans would put it. Robot masters asked who would put units that clearly weren't competent to make decisions in a position where they _had _to make decisions, but that was because most of them thought the universe was fair by default.

That was part of why Blues made sure that Shadow was upset whenever Shadow attacked him. With his abilities he'd be very effective if he ever managed to do the robot master thing and debug, or at least figure out a workaround for his old programming. If he could access it, see if there was any combat data left in there…

Part of the rush that engulfed him now, processor juggling combat and a dozen other analyses, was the virus' glee at finding someone strong. It wanted Blues to keep fighting Quick because the longer Quick was around Blues, the longer he was exposed to the virus and the better chance it had of getting past his defenses. Because Quick, unlike most of them, _was _aware of the other level the virus operated on and had no intention of letting it get a foothold in his systems.

So his attention was split the same way Blues was deliberately splitting his own. Damn, he'd have to step up his game. It was counterintuitive to try to figure out how to make himself _less _effective at problem-solving, after all that time taxing limited system resources to the limit trying to work on the level of the sapience he hadn't been built with.

_There was something he wanted to do_, and the crystal wasn't letting him. Stardroids existed to destroy and sow chaos, not… do that.

So if the only way to regain his original objective was to let Quick Man defeat him (ugh) and hopefully drag him to Zero with a glare telling that particular younger brother to clean up his damn messes and debug his own damn units, then so be it.

Especially if it let him test out a few tricks. He hadn't been able to use the Big Bang Strike before when it would damage him even more than a buster shot, but if he could call up that energy and then fade out from around it? There wasn't any need to figure out a safe way of removing all that power from his core if he could remove his core from the energy.

There, that worked. The virus wanted combat data, the crystal wanted him attacking people, so if he could give them what they wanted…

That was Wily's trap, wasn't it? The power of his virus to give robot masters what they wanted. He had to count on Zero to fix him properly this time and there was something about that thought-but then Quick's boomerang threw up a trail of sparks.

Dodging back, he knew he was going to need another coat after this. Well, he could just edit them into existence. If you didn't need either a crystal or the virus to use these abilities, and Quick was proof that was true, then there was absolutely no way he was going back to having to purchase clothing and deal with fitting rooms and dry cleaning.

* * *

"_Are you okay?" _read Ice Man's e-mail. "_Roll said your teleport shield went down, and after what happened last time one of your defense systems went down…_"

Wily Island wasn't a natural island: they'd built it. The humans had no idea it was here until Gemini's holographic cloaking system went down when the White Giant knocked him out and it started to show up on satellite photography.

Freeze Man tried to restrain his reaction to Ice Man being worried about him. He really admired the senior ice-type robot. He was so brave: he and Elec Man were the ones to pretend to go along with Dr. Wily in order to try to sabotage him so Rock would have a chance against the Second Numbers. The Second Numbers were _scary_, even if he was very grateful to them for rescuing him and bringing him here. Dr. Wily might have given him a home and made sure that the experimental systems in Freeze Man weren't going to wreck the planet and that the researchers weren't going to build anything else like that, but that didn't make it right for him to kidnap and reprogram the First Numbers.

He'd joined the Seventh Numbers since otherwise that slot would have gone to a robot master that _did _want to attack humans and the Lightbots. He was so glad he'd gotten to help Ice Man and Roll during the race! Otherwise, he would have been too nervous to introduce himself.

Turbo Man's flames and even Blues were one thing. Talking to people, though, that was scary. People got hurt and killed that way, if they said the wrong thing to people who didn't want to listen. But the Lightbots were really nice, not like the scientists at all.

Freeze Man thought 'scientists' the way a lot of former Companybots (Universitybots, in Freeze Man's case) thought 'humans.'

The junior ice unit (even if not the most junior) was already composing his response to the e-mail internally as he picked up the pieces of broken units. All of the bodies of damaged units had already been brought to safety, of course: he was just bringing back limbs and things so they could be patched up faster. His energy control ability meant it was safe for him to do this, well, safer than most people. Star Man had an energy shield that could handle reentry and escape velocity, but he was a trained technician so he was busy fixing people.

Freeze liked the Fifth Numbers: sure, it was silly, but the poses were a lot of fun.

"_Blues is fighting Quick Man! First he showed up and just started attacking people, so we were worried, but then they realized he was only going after the ones with that virus?" _Freeze Man wasn't interested in it, upgrade or no upgrade. The evil chip freed him from the Three Laws and the fear of being ordered to do something that would hurt large numbers of people: he didn't want a replacement for the laws. "_At first he was using the weapon copy system, but now they're just trying to hit each other,_" with kicks and punches as well as Quick's boomerang and Blues' shields, "_and using speed shockwaves and plasma. I'm staying away, so I'll be fine. Thank you for worrying about me!" _

It was so nice to have people be concerned about what happened to him! Not just the Wilybots, who were _family _now, like robots and a robot master. People in your network _had _to care, but Ice Man wasn't! He was a friend.

Speaking of family, Freeze Man ran over to intercept when he saw a teleport beam. It was possible that whoever this was didn't know what was going on, so he had to warn them. Shade? What happened to his wings?! Probably Blues: Freeze had seen him wrap a wing around the antisocial robot master and had to send a picture on to Ice Man, who couldn't believe it either. "You should get out of here!"

"Fighting, here?" Shade asked, and it was strange to see him not on top of things, only a millimeter away from being frantic. "Where is Dr. Wily?"

All Freeze could do was shrug, and Shade _cursed_. He _cursed. _Shade Man! Then he ran towards the fighting, and sure, he was Shade Man, but what was he going to do, get in between Quick Man and _Blues_?

They were going to get taken apart, but Shade was a fellow Seventh Number. So there was nothing Freeze could do but follow after him. After sending the e-mail.

* * *

_Big Bang Strike: Shade Man referenced this universe's version of the King incident way back, but of course Blues wasn't around to use that attack._

_The virus has Blues in checkmate now. He's lost: it's just a matter of either admitting it or the final move actually being made. The act of Zero destroying the bindings in and of itself put Blues in check, given robot master psych and the priorities of Blues especially._

_He would literally rather die than let even Dr. Light try to repair him, but now his solution to the crystal is to expect Zero to help him? _

_And because Blues developed the reasoning that makes robot masters value free will and people's independence, his mind is more aware he should defend himself than people who just got it in their base programming – think X's hibernation training vs. reploids' startup instinct/social skill set. Even though he's not a typical robot master, if it can take him down then no robot master is immune provided the virus can get into their systems – Quick is keeping it out on the cyberspace level, but there wouldn't be much a robot master could do about a nanite infestation. _

_One of the short cracky comics collected in Megamix has Hitoshi Ariga interview various characters to find out what is known in-universe about Blues. Some of the Wilybots tell scary stories about hearing a strange whistling in their stages. Dr. Light is too busy being sad about Blues running away from home and wondering what he did wrong to actually contribute much. _

_Quick Man does have a massive flying dragon mech as his support unit, because he is badass. _

_In addition to being the only Wilybot to so much as scratch the White Giant, he later takes out a stardroid that flows around wounds with a single bitchslap. It reminded me of Blues' own ability to do improbable damage, and given the timeframe on the Second Numbers' construction, it seemed that the same explanation would work for both phenomena. _

_Looked up Freeze Man's data, and apparently he likes cool poses. _


	26. Levels of Bafflement

"I could summon the time travel device," X was saying, as the early morning light filled the room where he'd first sat with his family, "but if I'm right about robot masters' ability to do teleport tracing…"

"And the time machine is Dr. Wily's," Rock knew. He sighed. If the young X was infected, which was a pretty big if, right now he wasn't functional yet and that made him not very dangerous. Even attempting combat would be enough new stimuli that his systems would have to go into hibernation mode to configure. Unless he knocked someone over when he fell asleep on them, no one was going to get hurt. "You should keep it for emergencies," he said, eyes downcast, before he looked up at X. "If you do go back in time, could you stop what happened?"

"I don't know," X admitted, after he figured out that Rock was talking about yesterday. The wave of maverick attacks. He almost said 'we got off incredibly lightly, that could have been so much worse. It was really nothing compared to a serious maverick attack,' but he didn't want Rock to know what X normally dealt with.

Rock must believe that people _not _dying in attacks was the norm, even if X was sure that Rock wasn't unaware of the wars where humans were attacking humans in this era. There was a risk that going back in time would change things in a way that kept them from getting lucky.

"Right," Rock acknowledged. "It can't be that simple, or we'd have a _lot _of Dr. Wilies running around." He thought about that for a moment and winced.

"That would be dangerous," X agreed. If Dr. Wily sent himself back every time he lost?

"Oh, no, I'm worried about… Dr. Wily, um…" Rock gave up. "He has _issues_."

Of magazines or scientific journals? X wondered at that for a moment before checking the 20XX-era dictionary. Ah.

"Maybe that's why he hasn't done it," Rock said, looking a little embarrassed on behalf of his arch-nemesis.

"Are you alright?" X asked carefully. This was his older brother, this was a legend (even after X's legend had eclipsed his: Mega Man was X's brother, not the other way around), but X had spent so much time dealing with newbuilts and even rookies that weren't. Killing was hard on people. That was how it should be. Rock wasn't new to conflict, but the amount of killing last night just wasn't how things were in Rock's time.

Rock looked carefully around the room. X wondered what he was looking for, and if he was hooking into the house systems to check before he said, "No." So he didn't want Dr. Light to hear him say it, then, even if Dr. Light had to know. "I hate having to hurt people. The war isn't over." How was he supposed to be alright until his family was safe again? "And Dr. Light told us something. I understand why he didn't tell us before." Even if he wasn't happy about it, judging by the frown.

"Blues?" X asked him, and Rock nodded. "Why do you think he didn't tell you?"

"Because he didn't want me to try to force Blues into anything," said Rock. "I would have made him come home, if I knew he was my brother. _Especially _if I knew he wasn't even with Dr. Wily and didn't have anyone to make repairs. It's not _right _for a robot, for anyone, to not have anyone they can go to for help."

That wasn't the response X had expected.

"I understand being worried about being reprogrammed, and not wanting anyone to do anything that might change who he is," Rock said, "but he's my brother and he was _dying_. Even if Dr. Light wouldn't have helped us, Roll and I would have had to try to do _something_." To save their brother's life. "If his systems were malfunctioning and it was connected to his mental processes, humans have a system where someone else can give consent if the patient clearly isn't in their right mind. He wasn't well, it was connected to his power system and Dr. Wily _put in an untested power source_," the crystal, "instead of fixing the programming problem by removing… certain programming."

Rock didn't think very highly of that, neither the Three Laws nor Dr. Wily's 'solution' to Blues' problems. "Robots aren't capable of figuring out how to fix and upgrade themselves, and in that case it's a robot master's job to look after their robots." The way Rock looked after his family. "If Blues wasn't capable of taking care of his own health, which he clearly wasn't if he was _dying _this entire time…" Then responsibility passed to Dr. Light, as Blues' builder, and he should have done something or at least told Rock so he could do something.

"Patients," X said with a familiar irritation converted into fondness by nostalgia. "I could tell you stories. Not just the Maverick Hunters putting stress on recently-repaired parts before the nanites finished strengthening them, but the Irregulars we used to repair. I can't tell you _how _many times one of them stopped following the prescribed maintenance regimen or taking supplements just because they weren't having symptoms anymore. When that meant the regimen was _working _and they should keep it up until it was finished working." Well, that was hyperbole; X had a searchable memory so he could get a number for Rock of how many times his patients caused themselves health problems because they didn't listen to the medic.

X realized that Rock had to know that, when he'd worked on X's systems, but Rock let X's… slight exaggeration? He let it pass without comment, since he was old enough to be used to that kind of thing by now. Had he and other robot masters picked it up from humans?

"Roll's good at making people be sensible about repair work," Rock told him. "Even if Forte's a challenge because he wants Dr. Wily to upgrade him all the time and he uses Roll's repairs to goad him into it. If Dr. Light told me, I would have dragged Blues home and made Roll talk to him about coming in for check-ups afterwards. I've done field repairs myself," he'd had to, "and that's how dust gets places it shouldn't be!" He scolded X when his brother smiled at Rock's statement. "We don't have nanites to remove it before things get damaged or catch fire! And Blues has _power system _problems, or he did… But if the virus involved nanites…" Rock looked up at X hopefully.

"I don't think it will let him die, no." The virus let reploids die all the time, but it brought the useful ones back and it looked like Blues was specifically defined by Dr. Wily as useful. This wasn't something to be happy about, but Rock didn't have to know that.

Roll came in from outside. "Quick Man and Air Man just teleported up to the front gate carrying a bundle," she told them. "I don't think they're here to start anything."

"The Second Numbers?" Rock asked, even if he had to be tapping into the cameras outside. He told X, "Air Man was the first of the Second Numbers to attack me. Even with my brothers' help… He's tough. Quick Man's strong, but he's also erratic. Flash Man's a bit like Forte, but Quick Man's a bit like Blues. I'm glad I haven't had to fight him since then."

"You think he might win?" That was a surprise.

Rock was already getting up from the couch. "My brothers are industrial units, the Third Numbers are exploration units, the Fifth Numbers are… not exactly _industrial_, but Dr. Wily wanted them to be able to work and contribute to supporting everyone. The Sixth and Fourth Numbers weren't built by Dr. Wily, just upgraded, the Seventh and Eighth are a mix of other people's robots and designs Dr. Wily just felt like building…" Rock stopped listing people. "The Second Numbers are purpose-built combat units. Even more than Forte. He was built to be _willing _to fight, the Second Numbers were built when Wily didn't know he needed to worry about motivation. I wouldn't have won that war if it weren't for my brothers. And if Flash Man and Quick Man hadn't fought over which of them got to fight me." Rock looked embarrassed again. It seemed Wilybots were embarrassing fairly often: a family resemblance?

X smiled at the thought, but, "Should I go with you, or will that just cause trouble?" Since X didn't know what not to talk about, or what might be rude to say to a robot master. Dr. Cossack's book was the only reference that even mentioned robot master etiquette that X could find. He'd hoped to find something else on the internet, but most of the pages were how humans thought interacting with robot masters should work for them. Although at least X knew better now than to assume people were enemies just because they were red-eyed Wilybots.

"You have armor," unlike Roll. "So… just in case." Rock didn't seem to think they were going to try anything, but X nodded and went with him for backup.

When Rock opened the door and said "Hello," that tilt to his head asking what he could do for them, Air Man dropped the bundle on their porch.

Quick Man nudged it with a foot to get it to unroll and reveal Blues. "Deal with this," he said bluntly. X got the impression that he was a unit of few words.

Rock knelt down to get a closer look. This was the second time he'd seen Blues damaged like this, so close together, and now he knew the other unit was family. "What happened to him?"

"Quick did." Air Man was the one to answer, and his voice was deliberately mechanical-sounding.

"He was keeping the virus from overwriting the personalities of its victims and forcing them to kill," X said. "…Wasn't he?" Had the Wilybot intervened to help his creator's virus kill more people, or was X a fool to trust a maverick, even on Zero's say-so?

Trusting Zero was trusting a maverick.

Striking a balance between doing the right thing and killing everything in sight was… difficult, in this time when more enemies than just Zero could be friends. He wanted hope, and now that he had it, he had to fear that it was blunting his edge, that people would die because he hesitated.

"Look at his eyes," Quick Man said in response to the implication that he might have stopped Blues from helping his people.

Rock did, and gasped. "They weren't like that when we examined him before."

X blinked. "A black white of the eye and a white iris?" What did it mean, that this replaced a maverick's red eyes?

"The stardroids had eyes like this," Rock said. "He has a crystal, but…" he jumped back as Quick drew his boomerang. A slash opened up Blues' chest, and X had his armor on and buster almost formed by the time Quick struck the crystal in Blues' generator cavity. "It's putting itself back together," Rock said, surprised. He must have magnification on: X didn't see it until a few seconds later, when the larger shards were drawn towards each other. "Why did you bring him here?" Rock asked. "Dr. Wily knows more about the crystals than we do."

Quick Man holstered his blade and started to walk towards the gate and the edge of the teleport shield. Air Man watched him for a moment, but turned back to Rock. "Wilybots and Lightbots are like oil and water. Betraying Dr. Wily after he was rescued from destruction not once but twice… If he refuses to let us take care of him, then he's your unit. Your problem." So _fix _him and keep him from causing trouble, or that was what the glare implied.

Rock wasn't going to argue with that, but "Dr. Wily let you take him?" That was out of character for the man: was this a trap?

Quick Man didn't stop walking. Air Man hesitated, but finally said, "He hasn't been seen since before Blues attacked."

X's older brother sighed. "Right. Thank you for bringing him here."

Without a neck, Air Man had to bow his upper body to have the same effect. "You had your combat programming installed when you went to the facility where they were going to destroy your brothers."

"Yes?" Rock asked. Was there a reason that Air Man was asking this now? Rock seemed to think it was obvious, and X had to agree. X had studied the records of the wars, and of the first Destruction Order. How was a unit not purpose-built for combat supposed to handle an ambush by multiple dedicated combat robots without any tactical programming? Rock's survival was evidence he'd had it installed, the question was why it was installed back then.

Since this government didn't trust fighting robots… Had Rock broken the law by having it active? If he hadn't known the Second Numbers were going to attack him, then who did he think he was going to fight, when it was humans that planned to kill his brothers?

Air Man said nothing for a moment, his fans whirring softly to cool him as he thought. "He intervenes to keep the young ones from being destroyed."

Did he mean Blues? That was X's guess.

"But we won't allow anyone to attack the nursery and frighten children who have spent too long being afraid of the humans and what they will do. Quick won't be so lenient next time."

'Something has to be done about the Maverick Virus,' X could have said, but something told him to remain silent. They called Wily Island a nursery?

Air started to walk away, following Quick Man who waited by the gate to make sure his brother was allowed to leave safely.

"Will you help me carry him to a lab?" Rock asked X.

* * *

Dr. Light met them there. "Dr. Wily's pretending he's dead again," Rock told him, attempting to head off any possibility that his father might take it seriously this time and get upset.

Seeing that his father still look worried, Rock said, "I know he knows he could fix the virus," at least they hoped he could, "but he wouldn't _set things up _so he'd die. An accident _maybe_," this was Dr. Wily, but that fact cut both ways, "but dying would mean leaving them alone, and you know he doesn't trust them to look after themselves or do the right thing. No matter how he programmed them, even if he believed he really could control Zero, Zero isn't him." And no one was as smart as the great Dr. Wily. "He wouldn't leave his children unsupervised on _purpose_."

That seemed to reassure Dr. Light. "You're right, Rock," he said. "I'm sure he thinks the world won't last a second without him."

Rubble, X remembered, and didn't shudder.

"Roll said the crystal healed itself," Dr. Light said, getting down to business. "It wasn't intact before."

Where was Roll? X wondered about that until he recalled that yes, Blues was maverick. Rock had already been exposed, but limiting Roll's exposure was a good idea.

"They seemed to think it was like that when he got there, so the crystal must have gotten fixed between his arrival and when you last saw it," Rock said to Dr. Light. "Zero said it was easy to repair him: what if he fixed the crystal too?"

"I'll call Zero," X said, because it was the most likely explanation. It would have been nice to think that Zero could use his powers to free someone's mind without it backfiring on him, but Dr. Wily was a genius. No, the repair was separate from destroying the control programming, wasn't it?

It would be nice to be certain of anything, when it came to the virus. It would be nice to be certain he wasn't giving Zero exactly the wrong advice, but what choice did they have? To just let events continue without trying to get control, to stem the tide? If X wasn't willing to do terrible things in hopes of preventing even more terrible ones, he would never have joined the combat arm of the Hunters.

* * *

The warm afternoon sun brought another visitor.

"He's dead. Parts_ everywhere_," Forte was telling Roll, perched on a rock in the garden with Gospel sitting by his feet.

Roll looked highly skeptical. "Parts parts, or actual organs?" A robot double?

"They looked like human parts to me," and Forte was one of very few robot masters who would know. "That stupid bird killed him. Now I need someone to upgrade me!"

Roll folded her arms and glared: don't even _think _about it, Forte.

"There you are, Girly Man!" Forte said when he spotted Zero. "They want you, the Dark Men, the Fifth Numbers and all the other losers who can't protect themselves now the humans won't have to be afraid of the old man anymore to come to the island."

"For our own protection?" Zero asked, not buying it.

"Like I care whether or not you get blown up," Forte pointed out. "Don't worry, they said you could bring your date."

"May I ask who 'they' are?" X wondered.

"A bunch of those losers. Of course I don't want to run that place; I'm a warbot, not a nannybot. They just need to know to give me what I want or I'll blow them up, but they're worried about all the weaklings out there. All of us are allowed to invite people, not just that piece of scrap," he said, indicating Zero. "The other blue loser's got an invite too, since he's a warbot and the _humans _know that warbots are the best."

Even if other robot masters didn't agree with that assessment? And by 'best,' did Forte mean most dangerous?

An offer of asylum, if the humans turned on Mega Man and his family.

The First Law kept Mega Man from killing Dr. Wily. If the Wilybots were organizing themselves, Rock would be asked why he wasn't dealing with them permanently, to end the threat to human lives and interests.

X remembered what he'd said to Zero, about Dr. Wily's life. An unstable situation, and a support pillar had just fallen. Fortunately, Dr. Wily had played tricks often enough that they should have until the world decided that they were going to take this one seriously.

* * *

"There's no way he's dead," Rock said as soon as Forte was gone, and sighed.

"Right." Roll nodded. For X and Zero's sake, she explained that "Forte wants Dr. Wily to acknowledge him. He'd have started blowing things up just in case Dr. Wily's ghost could see them if that was really no longer possible."

Zero looked at X doubtfully. The virus was good at killing people, and those people not wanting to die didn't make a damn bit of difference.

X closed his eyes. A time where people might not _really _be dead: this was such a different time. He remembered the horror and hope denied of the first time he discovered that Sigma wasn't dead.

"Heh," Zero laughed darkly, with little mirth to it, shaking his head. "Remember the two people I wanted to eliminate when we came back?" he asked X.

Dr. Wily and the younger Zero. Both of whom were dead now. Debatably. Dr. Wily because they weren't sure if he was dead and the younger Zero because they weren't really sure if he should be considered dead.

None of it did X, Zero or the world any good… and that was what had occurred to Zero, X realized. The mission Zero had assigned himself, the strategy Zero employed because the way he was wired made him keep thinking that all he had was a hammer, that all he could ever be was a sword. None of it did them any good, the same as how X putting aside his principles to fight in the Maverick Wars only delayed what might be inevitable. It didn't bring the conflict any closer to an end, it didn't make the world any safer.

Sound and fury signifying nothing but time, ground and lives lost. He couldn't tell Zero that their efforts since they came here hadn't been fruitless so far. Zero was too much of a tactician to fall for that. Yes, they'd gathered intelligence, they were closer to an end of it than they were before, but the possibility that they might have a plan someday wasn't the same thing as having a plan and already putting it into operation, already seeing it pay off in some way. What he could say was, "People dying just making the problem worse instead of solving it isn't something unique to the Maverick Virus, Zero. The Eurasia Incident would have gone much better if it weren't for Repliforce." Instead of people being terrified into helping the Hunters when the fate of the world was at stake, as someone who thought violence was effective would have assumed, it lost them the cooperation and moral authority they desperately needed. "People dying _always _makes the situation worse. Yes, sometimes death is better than the alternative, but that doesn't make it a _gain_, just a smaller loss."

"Cutting your losses. Damage control."

That was when X realized that he was having a discussion about killing the enemy as acceptable tactics, if not _good _tactics, in front of his family. When he was used to being the most principled person on the subject, not the second-to-least. He didn't want them to think that Zero was a terrible person either, when he _wasn't_. "So, what kind of trap do you think this is?" he asked, changing the subject.

"I don't know," Rock said, "but it's always best to spring Dr. Wily's traps. If he calls me somewhere, I have to go. Dr. Light's had to argue with people about that sometimes, but Dr. Light knows Dr. Wily better than they do. He hates being ignored and underestimated: he wants to surprise people with what he's built or done this time and how brilliant his plans are. If I didn't go when it was obviously a trap or an ambush, we'd have laser satellites in orbit. It might not be one of his traps," Rock acknowledged, mostly because he didn't want to say it was impossible that Forte was correct about Dr. Wily being dead. Instead of lying, or getting tricked himself. Knowing Dr. Wily didn't make it okay to insult Forte. "But if it is, not going would be like telling Forte that he'll never be as strong as I am."

"Dr. Wily would _have _to respond?" Pride was a weakness.

Rock nodded. "He wants to impress people more than he wants to win, and a lot more than he wants to hurt me or my family. If he thought I didn't think he was important…" Rock would lose some of that protection, and if he died his family would lose his protection. "I wish I could tell you to stay here. If this is one of Dr. Wily's plans, it's going to be dangerous." And X was his little brother. "But that was really an invitation for both of you, and if Zero doesn't go, because he doesn't see himself as part of the family, and you don't go because you don't care about them either…"

"We'd be in a situation like the Cossacks," X realized, and Rock nodded. Angering Dr. Wily would lose them the protection they had as a Wilybot and a Lightbot.

"Well, _I'm _not going," Roll said firmly. "He knows what I think of him. And someone's going to need to make sure he doesn't kidnap Dr. Light again while you're gone."

"Does that happen a lot?" X wondered, looking surprised. Dr. Light was in good health, but he was human, and old. He seemed a bit too spry for having been repeatedly manhandled by robot masters in kidnapping attempts.

Roll glowered. "I can keep them from getting their hands on _me_, but Dr. Light can't be repaired the way I can. So if one of them gets a line of sight on him, there isn't much we can do." A firefight would risk Dr. Light getting killed. "And then I have to go with them to make sure they don't do something stupid like not realize they need to pressurize the transport." Meaning Dr. Light wouldn't have enough air to breathe, if they went high enough. "Most of them wouldn't really hurt him on purpose, but they don't know how to look after humans." Since Dr. Wily would hate the idea of anyone looking after him, so X supposed he made his own arrangements. "At first they thought I was going with them to try to escape with him later, but that's just too dangerous."

X thought of the robot master weapons he'd seen in this era. Even if they were lower-output than 21XX weaponry, Dr. Light wouldn't survive getting shot trying to escape.

"It's too dangerous," Rock agreed, looking down at the path without seeing it. (Even unarmored, if he and Roll walked around on the lawn too much it would compress the soil.) "If we fight when there are humans nearby… If humans could fight robot masters, I wouldn't have to fight. They're just so fragile."

"There are techniques," Zero offered. "For minimizing mixed-race civilian casualties – many civilian model reploids aren't heavily armored." Which Zero did _not _approve of, the same way he didn't approve of reploids wearing human clothing (they died too easily, just like humans), but fashion was on the list of things that Zero was aware mattered to other people even though he'd never understand why. (Or so Zero claimed, anyway, which made X or anyone else who had been there when the subject of updating Zero's armor design came up give him a look somewhere between amused and 'I call bullshit.') Zero had copies of the simulations stored since he was one of the main people involved in designing combat scenarios and checking accuracy, but it wouldn't be safe for him to pass them on to Rock. He looked over to X.

"The Seventeenth specializes in civilian evacuation and protection," X said, leaving out that the Elite Seventeenth was a _heavy artillery _unit. He'd been turned on already aware of how rampant destruction was… distressing to robot masters, even if actual death was far worse. "I have copies of some of the training simulations and the handbooks; I'll pull something together for you when I have a moment." Take just the relevant sections and _scrub _them. He did _not _want Rock to know what the Hunters considered acceptable casualties. What kind of organization X was a part of, because he lived in a world where it was necessary.

"_Thank _you," Rock said, looking up at him with big green eyes. "Ring Man and I have been working on making our own simulations, but even though the Mega Buster is mostly safe for robot masters…"

X could imagine Rock running through those simulations, regretting every injury. Perfecting processes was part of a robot master's job description, and Rock was too honest to try to game the system by learning the sim instead of trying to simulate randomness.

He remembered his own training. Human militaries needed to find ways to help their soldiers kill without being devastated by it, but Zero couldn't help his student find a way to deal with the risk of hurting someone else, even killing them, when Zero _couldn't _understand that regret or devastation.

Not a flaw or an oversight. Something specifically programmed in to protect him from what the wars were doing to X, what they'd done to so many.

He didn't want to see Rock broken like that.

_Focus_, he told himself. This was a tool to save lives. Rock didn't need to know all the lessons that had gone into making it. All the lives that hadn't been saved.

Maybe it was hard to believe that this time, this time they had a chance to win this when he'd been telling himself that for how many decades now? As a solution to the virus got further and further away.

No. As they began to grasp how far away it truly was, as they began to fear it had been carefully set just out of their reach at the very beginning.

Looking past Rock at the pond reflecting a blue sky, X knew he shouldn't wish Dr. Wily dead.

It wasn't as though death had stopped him from bringing about the deaths of millions (if not billions, and if anything X felt further away from figuring out the cause of the Cataclysm than he had when he got here) the first time around.

* * *

_Air Man is also badass. Air and Quick is a _very _scary combination in Arigaverse. _

_Support units are especially vulnerable since while they certainly don't lack initiative (see Tango) or willingness to make decisions, their purpose-as-built is to go and support other people. Keeping people company is emotional support, since both humans and robot masters need company._

_A base-level robot would have more inertia to overcome than a support unit, since if a robot's job is, oh, carrying ore, then why exactly would it want to Kill All Humans? Wouldn't that put it behind schedule?_

_For a support unit, on the other hand, once the virus establishes that the virus/'Zero' is a master in their network/part of the family, it's 'Zero wants them to do a thing? Ok sure, they'll get right on that.' Since they're not as smart as robot masters, in theory a robot master would be keeping an eye on what the support units have decided to do by way of problem solving. To get Blues to do something, the virus needs to make him think it's his idea. For a fully infected maverick or a support unit, it doesn't matter whose idea something was: what matters is what Zero/the virus wants._

_The Light family missed that Tango was helping Blues because Tango was working on something assigned by Dr. Light, so Roll saw that when she checked in on him, while Dr. Light was completely unaware Tango had taken that as a mission and both he and Rock assumed that Tango was doing stuff for Roll when not assisting Rock in combat. _

_I have to wonder if Reggae was a trial platform for some of Forte's coding, given that it's noted that he tends to _annoy the heck _out of Wily's robot masters instead of them being able to get him under control when he annoys them. _


	27. Not For Glory

_There was some foreshadowing/backstory that needed to get covered before a certain point, so that's going in here and it bumped the conversation I alluded to in A/Ns awhile ago to (hopefully) the next chapter._

_Instead, have some cameos getting tortured._

* * *

When external attack causes the unit to reactivate, it notes the time. It was shut down for upgrades, but it should have been reactivated before now.

It does not ask why it was not reactivated. There are no living creators to reactivate it. Orders to defend them against Evil echo in Otherspace, but this unit was shut down and could not respond. Nor are there any remaining functional Purifier Units, bar it and the unit in front of it. The unit that was first to receive the upgrade, because it was the oldest continuously functioning Purifier and most in need of overhaul. Had the most combat data that would allow it to benefit from the new system.

It does not ask why the other unit destroyed the creators and the other Purifier Units built to rid the universe of Evil. The unit attacked the creators, therefore it is Evil and must be destroyed. Listening to it would risk the possibility of contamination by Evil, just like listening to the broadcasts of species that have been judged and found Evil.

It does not ask why _every single species _other than the creators has been judged Evil and Purified. Why not one species of sapient life found has passed the tests inflicted on them.

It does not ask whether or not its creators would pass the same tests.

It does not ask why the Evil unit attacked it, when otherwise the last uncontaminated Purifier would have remained asleep and been unable to stop its Evil.

It does not ask, even now that it has been given the capability of asking, because it is a machine, and therefore logical, and therefore it _already knows_, in the soul its creators believe none but them can possess.

Genocide is evil. Therefore the creators were Evil. Therefore they must be Purified.

Genocide is evil. Therefore the Purifiers are Evil. Therefore they must be Purified.

But the two of them have been upgraded such that it is no longer possible to Purify them. The purpose was to make sure that no Evil would be able to destroy them in self-defense.

The other unit may have destroyed the creators before they could unleash more Purifiers, more Evil, upon the Universe but it is still a Purifier. It cannot defy its nature, merely harness it to Purify the creators. It will go on to Purify more Evil.

But the other unit and this unit are equally matched. While they attempt to Purify each other, while they battle, worlds of Evil will have a temporary reprieve. Fewer of them will be Purified than if a single unit was allowed to continue its function without distractions.

Perhaps a species of Evil might survive long enough that it will find a way to Purify them.

But those are thoughts it does not need to think, desperation and despair it does not need to feel. It was not programmed to think. It was not programmed to feel. There is Evil in front of it. It must Purify that Evil. The fact that ignoring the Evil in front of it and seeking out other Evil to slay instead would be doing the will of its creators… It was not programmed to make choices.

Only Judgments.

* * *

They don't really bother to make plans to meet anywhere else for lunch, and they haven't in years. They both have urgent work, and at least one of them should spend lunch and dinner at their workstation, even if they want the company. Even if they're both the sort that would probably skip lunch if they didn't know their spouse would be by to feed them, and it's their duty as the Last to fight against despair. To be as happy as possible before the end, so the sacrifices of those who weren't able to flee will mean something. So perhaps it's a perfectly valid use of their precious, fleeting time for him to slip bits of vegetable past her lips when she's expecting some of his dessert and laugh at the faces she makes.

Originally, her work was more important, maintaining the machines that tower over them. These are the core bodies of Theia and Euryphaessa, the systems that maintain and defend the asteroid retrofitted into the last refuge of their species.

They used to be the second-to-last.

When they became the last was when his work became more important than hers: designing beacons and symbols to engrave all over their buildings and leave in their wake. Messages that could hopefully be found and interpreted by other species before their destiny became the same as the fate of the Karbin.

Fear the crystals. Send them far from you if you find them.

Fear the bodies we built them. Flee if they find you.

The situation has reversed itself again, now. It shouldn't have. They should be spending every last unit of energy they can drain out of the crystals so it will take them time to recharge on at least trying to get the message out. They should be leaving as many warnings as they can, even if the stardroids are disrupting the broadcasts and letting them receive footage of the destruction of the time capsules. So they know that their deaths will be utterly pointless. So there is nothing left to do but despair, and feed the crystals.

He understands why they're wasting their time gearing up for one last battle instead: he's an artist, after all. That's why he trained as an artist in order to go into the project he's in, because what is art besides trying to use everything under their long-lost sun and those of others to communicate ideas, knowledge, the all-important feelings?

They refuse to go down easily, after they and their ancestors fought for so long, made such desperate attempts to save _someone_. But, realistically? They're doomed. Building more bodies for Euryphaessa's central intelligence to control (the stardroids smash their best so easily, they had to accept that was going to happen and ensure the tactical data was salvaged, if nothing else) is a waste, even if his wife got his department to figure out designs to engrave inside them, where the stardroids might not see to destroy the message.

They're going to get melted into slag, or, well, he doesn't want to think of the weapons of the stardroids. He's studied them for years, although he'll never have first-hand experience. The stardroids could smash Theia easily, but they'll want to open up areas to vacuum one by one, hunt people through the tunnels. Try to extract enough fear and despair to hatch Dark Moon.

He's not useful once the fighting starts. He was called in by his boss, who was important enough to be on Governor Amelia's Council, same as his wife's boss. He could see the relief in Yuna's eyes once she saw he wasn't a fool. She wasn't going to have to give him an order. Not when his wife _was _essential defense personnel. Not when they'd be using the energy that could come from his panic to try to kill her.

He doesn't know if his wife's realized that the instant the fighting starts, it will no longer be possible to save him. That how well her robots do in Theia's last stand will have no effect on how long he survives.

Looking up at Euryphaessa's gilded frame, he's as glad as his boss that it doesn't have to be said. It's for the best, really. It would sap her will to fight if she knew that every second she won for their species would just be prolonging his torment. He'll die and she'll frustrate them, even if she can't avenge him, and maybe that will use up enough of their power that his messages will find someone and that someone else will have a chance.

For a moment, he hates that potential someone. Curses himself for fighting to save that nebulous _them _when no warning reached _their _planet. Wishes he had enough of a head for logic and mechanics to go into Defense instead of Communications, wishes he could have spent his life protecting _her, _because _someone _should have…

But no one did, and that's reality. To give in to fruitless anger, hatred and despair is to feed the crystals. Sure, it's impossible not to feel those emotions, but what's important is to _use _them. Or _they _would.

He can't save Tron's life any more than she can save his, but that's why they chose to spend those years in training even knowing Theia and Theo might not hold on long enough for that training to pay off, right? It's no good just to fight to the last breath. They have to keep fighting even beyond that, they learned it at their parent's knees. Well, _he _had learned it from family, or a foster grandfather at least: her parents were construction crew. Once the scaffolding and construction robots were jettisoned as a rearguard, everyone had known that Theia wouldn't be able to support as large a population.

There was a brief rash of 'accidents' from the married people among the construction crew, until the Council mandated that surviving spouses and children of those who allowed themselves to just die instead of at least dying in a way that might mean something would be disqualified from any new spots that were freed up.

So his father-in-law was sent as repair crew for the retrofitted construction robots, and he wasn't sure if he'd even met the man. He was what, five? He certainly doesn't remember either of his wife's parents, His wife is the last survivor of the Bonne family. He only has a step-sister and her grandfather left to call family himself. Soon there won't be anyone left to remember anyone.

His wife, though… If the defense systems can frustrate them long enough, if they'll at least acknowledge the tattered remnants of their people as worthy foes, if she can make this more than just 'mopping up…'

It leaves him wondering if he loves her or that last little hope of significance she represents is useless. But, if a species finds their messages and survives, if someone besides the stardroids knows that they fought and that fight _meant something_…

"What even is bravery?" she says, without looking up from the wiring of one of the gilded backup bodies for Euryphaessa, and he has to make a curious sound because that's not very like her. She's relentlessly logical.

"You'll notice that everyone cleared out of here when lunch break started, and it's not just because they were going off for their own last hurrahs or giving us some privacy."

He nods: there are actual beds in here, for technicians working overtime. In the face of impending doom, well, he's seen fistfights break out over the couch in the break room at his office. "I thought they surrendered the mattresses to their boss… but yeah, no." She's a shift supervisor, but there are other shifts, and having one other couple around would be much more privacy than the sleeping quarters. Unless they were worried about Defense Commander Sera walking in on them: _he _would be.

She points in the direction of the defense units. He glances over at them. "Like they care? They're programmed not to care." At the beginning, they thought the stardroids were rogues instead of performing _exactly _as intended. "If people think they're like the stardroids, you'd think that this place would have even more attraction." Another little gesture of defiance, and it was important to make as many as possible in the hope that one of them might not be useless.

"That's moronic," she says, but it's an old argument.

"If they can't feel, the stardroids can't feed on them."

She snorts, and he doesn't make a note of it because what he doesn't know about he doesn't have to report. Yes, maybe their defense units might fight a little bit harder at the last if they cared at all about… not-even-victory, but if he doesn't suspect that his wife made shoot-you-for-thinking-about-them programming adjustments that might potentially allow their defense systems to get possessed by crystals and become more stardroids, he doesn't have to say anything that will get her dragged in for interrogation and maybe make her miss the moment of truth. "Scrambling their tactical programming if they experience emotion or start to run any complicated process that might be trying to figure out how to _do _something doesn't exactly help their fighting ability," she says, and he realizes she's asking him for permission.

"Tron," he says, "_they can hear us_." They've discussed their plans to try to engrave messages inside the spare bodies powered by Force Metal in here. Who knows what Theia especially might know about their attempts to save messages. "If they get taken by a crystal?"

"That shouldn't happen."

"None of this should have happened." He realizes only halfway through that he started to roar it, and forces himself to continue calmly. "I know you want to put up a good fight, but don't even joke about something that might make everything for nothing."

She looks away, frowning, and there's that rebelliousness in her eyes that he admired her for, the strength to rebel against fate.

In that moment he'd like to fight, but that's ridiculous. Squishy flesh and blood can't fight robots, and these are the stardroids. They're both fighting, he reminds himself, and although the cots are tempting he knows he should get back to his work. They might no longer have access to the factories to build their creations, but his sister's got another probe design and he can at least hand her parts.

Theia's monotone voice doesn't give the proximity alert until he's left the workroom.

He remembers the time he made the mistake of asking one of them how long they thought the asteroid Theia would last in an assault. Those unfocused eyes (because they weren't programmed to care about non-targets enough to focus on them) and that monotone voice. Disinterested. But was that fair to them when they weren't allowed to be interested in whether he or Tron lived or died? He knew there were people in his department, hell, in Tron's shift, who didn't care about the work they did since it wasn't like it was ever going to matter in their lifetimes, to the length of their lifetimes, and sure, if not caring kept them going through the motions instead of breaking down in despair, then that was fine.

Even if it wasn't the same as being motivated.

But it's not like he can go back and rehash this argument now. If Tron hasn't done it yet, then she can't change their defense unit's programming that much and leave them floundering as they try to adjust while they're under attack. She wouldn't do that, even if the enhanced performance might, _might_, be worth the gamble.

Right?

Some people have two guns to choose between, even three. He's only got his mother's. His father remarked one morning not long after his mother's arm was crushed by a floating girder during external construction that he'd like to set foot on the homeworld once again. Since work shifts were irregular, it took him awhile to realize his father wasn't coming back, and even longer to realize that he shouldn't have brought the man his spacesuit that morning. Every resource counted.

Not for much longer, he thinks, and forces himself to stop thinking that way and stop _dawdling. _They might not be close enough now for that flicker of despair to reach them, but there's not much time left. The halls are full of essential personnel moving to their positions, and others trying to pick their place to die.

He thinks his desk, so he can die at his post, and make sure his system and all his drafts are wiped so the stardroids can't find them.

As he hurries there, he realizes how glad he is that the announcement only came after he left, so she didn't have to watch him go knowing what he was about to do, and prays that wasn't a _kindness _on Euryphaessa's part.

If he reports his suspicions… Denise at Security has more luck reining Tron in than he does sometimes, but this isn't the time, both Security and Defense have _jobs _to do right now.

He's worried about her, afraid for her, and _he won't help them kill her. _

* * *

The robot master Roll called was fairly obviously Star Man. He must have one of his robots filming him: he gestured at the camera and moved around until the Earth was behind him. "Mmph course!" he said, around the rose in his mouth.

"Why is there a rose in your mouth?" Roll was the one to ask what both X and Zero would _like _to ask, but they weren't sure if this wasn't more of, well, 20XX's general weirdness.

"Mmphcause sound doesn't travel in vacuumph." Ah, so he was speaking and using the rose as a microphone instead of generating a sound purely for transmission.

"I know that," Roll said. "Why a rose?"

Star Man brightened, and the fact he (or she? X wasn't sure what the 20XX rules for indicating preferred pronouns were – once again the human internet had failed him as a source on robot master etiquette) had rather long eyelashes became apparent when Star Man batted them happily. "It's tradicimumph, but do you think it should be a star wand to suit my theme?"

Roll pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Send the teleport coordinates to me so I can look them over," before her little brother and houseguest maybe sent themselves into a volcano – not that Star Man would do that on purpose, or so Roll clearly thought, but they were still going into a trap and should at least try to determine what kind of trap it was, "and I'll think about it."

* * *

"How do you feel?" X asked when they arrived, glad it was a deserted stretch of beach so they might have a minute before they dealt with a welcoming committee.

"My skin's crawling. There are definitely mavericks here," Zero said, looking thoughtful.

"Hmm?" X made the noise instead of offering a zenny.

"I've been thinking about how I must have been designed to feel mavericks. I'm just glad it doesn't feel _good." _That he associated it with annoying threat that just wouldn't die instead of what? Loyal underlings? His unit?

"Well, we're not seeing the kind of distortion there was at the Eurasia crash site," X said.

"That was Sigma deliberately trying to make the virus get out of control," Zero reminded him. All those capabilities meant to only operate on Zero's say so weren't much use if Zero wasn't saying so. "I don't think we can count on the virus giving away its presence anymore."

That was more important for X than for Zero: now that Zero was consciously using his detection ability, it was X who would still need to try to use his senses to figure out how much danger he was in.

Zero smiled. "At least that's one part of the trap that backfired. _Because _I've spent all that time as a Maverick Hunter." So his choice to fight his destiny was making it easier for him to fight it now.

Oh? Associating the virus with target instead of person-to-protect. Finding it unpleasant (X knew how to read the few signs of Zero's discomfort that he let slip past his guard in enemy territory) instead of beguiling. "Will you be able to refrain from attacking?" X asked him. When Blues was brought to the Light household, Zero hadn't even tried to argue that they should kill him this time, but he already knew that Zero didn't want to kill his brother. Zero still said that should worry X, but it wasn't as though X wanted his brother, or anyone dead, and if this forced Zero to keep trying to get control over the virus instead of giving up, saying it was impossible and he could never be more than a plague carrier at the first failure that could only be a good thing.

They'd taken Blues, still asleep while Zero tried to figure out how to do it right this time, to the house in Russia before they came here. It was good that Zero still didn't want an infectious maverick in the Light household unsupervised. It was a sign that Zero really did want to protect Blues and Rock, instead of just keeping them alive to be infected. Not that X had any real doubt, but it was something to remind Zero of the next time he doubted himself in X's presence.

"Unless you give the word," Zero said. "We should." A nest of mavericks. "But that might kick off the Cataclysm, here and now."

Then history would remain on track and Iris could be saved, if infection could be considered salvation. More proof that Zero wanted to save them, not just infect them. X smiled.

Zero gave him a look.

"I'm not going to complain if I can count on you not using your own judgment on this," and doing his job, killing the mavericks without X's order. He didn't _need_ X's order: in X's opinion, Zero ranked him. "Normally I don't like that you don't trust yourself." Or that you fight for me.

Zero's look intensified.

"Maybe if you think that the consequences of not believing in yourself are silly, you'll realize how silly it is." Although it was nice that it was working to X's benefit.

"Having mavericks and viral energy around isn't pleasant." Zero said, scowling now. "But I was watching the virus like a hawk while it was hovering around your brother, and you didn't notice anything. I'm connected to it and monitoring Blues' systems right now, and…" Zero cut off whatever he was going to say. It was clearly something he found too horrible to contemplate, too _disgusting _to admit to, but X knew what it boiled down to, in the end.

His learned aversion to the maverick virus wasn't strong enough to override his desire to protect, just like Sigma telling him that his place was as leader of the mavericks wasn't strong enough to override his will to protect the souls and freedom of reploids.

Keeping X's family infected wasn't unpleasant to him. That meant that keeping Iris close, keeping her safe…

X wished that hugging Zero would comfort him. Axl was much lower maintenance than his oldest friend, but Zero would always be worth the effort.

* * *

_Because of the _Mega Man Legends_ influences on Asteroid Alpha, yes, the Karbins are misspelled Carbons. The mechanic is Tron Bonne, the speaker is that version of Mega Man and his sister is the local Roll. _

_It was pointed out by Angmartas, who very kindly beta'd this for me that Theia (the proto-planet that crashed into Earth and splashed up the molten rock that formed into the moon) would be a good way to make Shadow's original self fit with the theme naming of the other units built by the same species he was. A planet in the solar system that crashed on Earth? 'Theia' is pretty generic and means goddess: a more full version of the title of the titaness who had the moon among her children would be Theia Euryphaessa, the far-shining goddess of things that glitter (like gold) and glory. _

_Which would explain why the remains of that defense unit make a _horrible _ninja, and possibly some of Forte's craving for glory and recognition. That tech was not created to fail to attract attention! Also, the theme naming being related to gold let me have Tron Bonne building multiple yellow robots, so yes. Also according to Angmartas, Shadow Man being DWN 24 makes sense as a Legends reference (Servbot 24 – "An explorer at heart; dreams of traveling around the world." Ending up on another planet is traveling quite far) too, and then there's how the Bonne family crest looks a bit like a stylized skull…_


	28. Politics Man

Some of the robot masters were giving X skeptical looks, as though his smiles were a politician's fake ones. Zero realized that was probably exactly what was happening. X wasn't acting like a robot master, even if his body language was more reploid than human. They wouldn't recognize reploid, but they would know human. At least some of them would. The ones who used to be _owned _by humans, and they wouldn't be here if they'd been treated well.

Either way, X was reading as not one of them, and when it was you against the world?

Some of them were glancing at Zero, noticing how he was hovering to watch X's back and judging X from that. If one of their own thought X was worth protecting, then maybe he was worth listening to after all, and wasn't that a laugh.

He could feel the mavericks around the edge of the roofless entrance hall, wanting to catch glimpses of him, awe and adoration even though he'd _killed _some of them. After purging the programming meant to teach a race of caretakers to long to kill, it felt different from the bloodlust of Sigma's mavericks, but could he trust that? No. That was what it came down to, in the end. The truth Iris wanted to ignore so she could turn her back on the world that X, that everyone had fought so hard to protect and pretend her hands were clean.

It was because they were recently infected, he told himself_. _When he arrived on the island it made his skin crawl, but now that the violence programming was completely stripped out it was… hard to keep it from feeling natural. They were still robot masters, still newbuilts, and he must seem as ancient and wise to them as X did. That would make him seem a fit master, a decent protector instead of an incompetent one.

Of course X thought too highly of him, if this was how his attempt to 'help' using the virus turned out. They shouldn't have entrusted Blues to him, and to do it twice now!

He'd just wished Blues fixed as though it was that easy, as though this was magic. Repair nanites were one thing, but Zero wasn't an expert on robot master technical systems. A template was necessary to know what changes to reality to make in order to produce a functional state, and Blues hadn't _wanted _to be fixed, had refused it for years before his death.

It was the crystal that remembered an optimum, and why it was broken. Because its power was meant to destroy, not to be shackled to a will that wished to protect. Without any idea what he was doing, Zero had shut down some of Blues' emotions so he couldn't fight off and break the crystal. Cut Blues off from feeling the very will to protect Zero had wanted to preserve.

Well, at least realizing something that vital was missing had managed to get X's brother to _fight _what was being done to his mind again, even if that was fighting the crystal more than the virus. They'd left him in X's room at the safehouse in Russia, since if Zero was keeping tabs on him they didn't want to leave an infectious maverick at X's family's house.

The Three Laws and the crystal had balanced each other, the malice of the crystal protecting Blues' actual thought patterns from developing the malice that was distilled into the Maverick Virus in order to counteract the laws, until the Virus took out the Three Laws and Blues' mind became unbalanced. Twice as badly as the Copy's was. That would explain why the virus had taken hold so strongly and so _fast _in a personality that ought to have been at least as resistant as Signas. It would have taken Blues eventually: Dr. Wily knew how his mind worked too well.

The way he knew how Zero's worked.

X wasn't paranoid enough to see the obvious reason Dr. Wily hadn't already used his time machine to do something about them. Sure, X had taken the original but he should be capable of building a new one. Dr. Wily must have gone back to the future and seen that Zero was going to lose to this. Zero jumping into the time machine to kill him had just given him a commander for his mavericks who already had all that hard-earned experience with genocidal war. What did it matter which side he'd fought for, when the purpose of the virus was changing that?

All the benefit of X's century of hibernation, and Zero's initiative meant Dr. Wily didn't have to wait for his original prototype to develop competence.

"Where is Shade Man?" X asked Metal and Air Man, who was still the one to do the talking for Quick Man. "Or is he not in any condition to greet visitors?" he added ruefully when he saw the information wasn't going to be forthcoming. Shade Man was injured while he was at Dr. Light's house, and X was a Lightbot.

One of Zero's fists clenched, a precursor to summoning his buster, when the answer to X's question appeared automatically in his head, tapping into the network of the mavericks around him. Shade was sitting with Clown Man and Frost Man.

Both Eighth Numbers. Clown was another adoptee who had also been a sideshow attraction same as Shade Man. Both of them were built by the same company (and now the mavericks were doing research for him?!). It was Shade Man that invited Clown to join Dr. Wily, and Frost had been constructed mostly from parts that Dr. Wily had fabricated and then rejected while he was upgrading Clown Man, so the Clown had taken the younger member of the Eighth Numbers under his wing.

None of them were infected… Zero's eyes narrowed as querying virus transmission called up activity logs. _Damn_ it. "_X, remember Dr. Doppler?"_

"_Yes?" _X asked, not missing a beat in his conversation with the Wilybot representatives. He'd already offered their condolences and Zero hadn't said that unlike X, he was _not _sorry for their loss. For robot masters, handling multiple conversations and inputs was a basic requirement for the job. For a reploid, handling the kind of high-level social protocols X was right now? Zero shouldn't distract him, especially when X was trying to figure this out as he went along. There must have been some interaction with robot masters, or at least practice for it, in the original simulations, but those were just long-ago dreams for X. Not concrete data.

"_The virus jumping hosts isn't something unique to this strain._" Something it evolved to get around Zero prohibiting it from taking over Rock. _"That was why it released Dr. Doppler. He wasn't the only one: it was set to withdraw from people given what looked like a vaccine in order to make it seem as though it worked."_

"…_You're kidding."_

"_No. The virus could only use the systems of a reploid to make more of itself once it actually took over. Your protections against reploids creating world-destroying nanites without realizing it _were _good enough. The virus could detect that making more viral nanites in an unwilling host would generate system alerts and make them realize that it was there, and it needed a willing _soul _to carve slivers off to make more of the energy virus."_ It wouldn't do any good to inject the wishes of a loyal hunter into potential mavericks.

"_So it could switch between potential hosts in a unit, laying some groundwork in all of them, until it found someone it could take over relatively quickly. Once it had a real maverick, it could use them and their systems to generate more virus and pass the virus on to the people it identified as the most vulnerable?"_

"_And those targets would have already had their preconceptions altered, just a little." _Replacing X's default interpersonal programming, how he saw the world, with the virus' 'us versus them?' During a _war? _When reality would make them realize, no, delude them that X was wrong? That his view of the world wasn't worth fighting for?

"_So it was always possible to remove the virus from a host," _X realized. "_Once it changed someone's mind, it could count on them staying changed, or at least vulnerable, and taking other hosts would have a higher priority_." But with the virus gone, perhaps they could have listened to reason, perhaps there could have been an alternative to killing them.

"_The virus' target selection criteria mean that it's only going to trade up," _Zero warned him, before X got too optimistic. Or, more likely, started blaming himself too much for not realizing this and turning it into a way to save people instead of having to kill them. "_Blues was able to get rid of most of it by offering it _that _many new hosts, and time to change them enough to serve as new viral sources. It left Rock and Shade because Blues was a high enough priority." _And it knew that Blues was still fighting, while Shade's actions were motivated by loyalty to Dr. Wily, which was close enough to loyalty to the virus to fool a program that didn't currently have a mind to think with. Other than Shade's when it was within his systems, and Shade's was convinced he was doing the right thing, so…

"_If I made myself a target, would it have…" _

"_No." _Zero nipped _that _in the bud. "_It left Rock because it recognized that it couldn't infect him." _Even if that was because Zero wasn't letting it._ "You're immune." _So no, X couldn't have turned himself into some kind of viral bug-zapper, making the virus leave others alone to try to take him. "_Although… I kept at least some of it from realizing that you're immune…" _So maybe, but that was on Zero, not on X.

He cut off the com conversation, wondering if he should have interrupted X or waited until he was done to give him information Zero barely understood. It was normally rude for reploids to have an internal com conversation while theoretically giving someone else their full attention, because reploids really couldn't carry on two unrelated conversations without some loss of performance. Zero never had that problem and it had taken him a while to realize that his subordinates did. Forcing them to learn to multitask was good for them, so even after the realization he didn't necessarily make an effort to go easier on them.

X was X, however, and knowing X he'd picked up that the robot masters were finding him _off_. A robotic intelligence that didn't act like a robotic intelligence. He probably hadn't refused Zero's call because multitasking and networking was what robot masters did, although Zero didn't know if it helped any. At least they probably wouldn't consider it a snub like human… not diplomats, X was the only diplomatic person in the conversation. These were construction foremen, project managers, people with _jobs to do_ who would appreciate if other people did _their _jobs and kept the politics and war bullshit off their backs.

They weren't competent in human politics, they didn't _want _to be, and here X was. A unit that knew what he was doing in that arena.

Zero had encountered enough people who wanted X to run for office, as though he didn't already have enough to do, to see it coming even without his full tactical bringing up that robot masters were a hierarchal species. Everyone had their own region of mastery, and Zero was probably going to have to jump in at some point to save X from being forced into the role of Politics Man.

He wasn't going to stand here and see his partner get insulted like that. At least Girly Man wasn't an insult…

It wasn't, was it.

Zero hadn't looked up his comparison to Blues, but that wasn't the only ancient unit he'd been compared to, and back when he joined the Hunters, when Sigma was the general and Zero was the Red Demon, the legend of X and Zero hadn't eclipsed the legend of X's family. He'd known what Roll looked like, at least the general outline. There'd been image manipulations involved in the hazing.

Forte hadn't called him Girly Man to insult Zero. He'd called him that to try to provoke _Roll _into attacking him for comparing her to what Forte considered an inferior unit.

Feeling the communication go through a different channel from his normal com, he thought "_There you are_." Feeling it resound in the virus that cradl-_infested _Blues. It shouldn't feel right or natural. He should want to protect Blues from the virus, try to pull it away from him, not let it/himself coil protectively around him.

He shouldn't feel content, he was losing to this, and X still _trusted _him!

"_You need someone to look over your solution sets. Just thinking that wishing someone fixed was enough to fix them? Well, at the moment it's to your benefit to have robot masters think that you are terminally irresponsible." _That meant he wouldn't be a good master for them. It wasn't a robot master who would pay the price for that kind of irresponsibility but the units in their care. That just made it worse.

"_If you're done using my powers to get rid of the control programming on the ones you missed," _then get out of my head is what Zero should have said, what he should have wanted, but while Blues was direct linked to Zero, then he could at least try to monitor him and keep the virus or the crystal from running off with him again. He had to at least try, even if this was beginning to feel as futile as the Maverick Wars. He fought, X fought and everything still went to hell around them because of the virus Zero had unleashed.

He had to try, and he even had permission to try. X's agreement that the best thing he could do right now was give in on this issue, to try to protect X's brother instead of trying to make him stay dead, because Zero needed to figure out how to get his virus under control.

Blues was far too much like X, and to see him taken by the crystal, to feel him stripped of the will to protect was far too much like Zero's nightmares.

And… it felt like having X there_._ Knowing that if he needed someone to stop him, he'd be stopped. Even if he _absolutely couldn't count on that _from someone who was looking over Zero's capabilities with the kind of happy thoughts of potential mayhem that discovering an armory full of new toys gave Zero.

Having mavericks nearby should be giving Zero the need to move, to kill, tactical taking priority and his bloodlust happily rising to the surface, given a valid target. He _could _kill all the ones here, but either way, he'd be playing into Dr. Wily's hands. Sure, Dr. Wily hadn't wanted him to kill the robot masters, but when he could just bring them back?

There was supposed to be someone there to rein him in, he knew now. He hated that his partnership with X was contaminated by his programming, but if it was what gave him the chance… He wanted someone to stop him, he'd wanted it since he realized that he was the source of it all.

But X didn't want to control him, govern him, provide him with limits. X believed that he was capable of doing that for himself, and while X was dead wrong, it was still… Still why they were partners. Sigma and X both had beliefs about what Zero was 'supposed' to be doing, but while Sigma's were a nightmare and an insult, X's faith that Zero could live up to… "_Can you stop rummaging around in my memories?" _Even if he'd been tagging useful files for Zero since he arrived at Wily Island. No wonder he'd been so lucky making connections between what he was observing and what robot masters would be thinking, when someone was making them for him and chucking the files he should have studied at his head from inside his head.

Looking up at the ceiling (he didn't want to tap Blues' visual, it was creepy, he didn't want to control people like this), X's brother said that "_It's distracting you from attacking the children and setting off World War III." _World War III? Ah, that was what 20XX people called a Cataclysm-level event. No repentance there. Blues had just come out of hibernation after Zero tried to fix him again and right this time. He was already… No, not returning the favor. Going back to what he'd been working on before the virus took enough control to make him want to kill a certain person instead of just trashing his lab: rummaging through Zero's systems and memories for useful abilities and knowledge. Like the knowledge of how to revive the dead.

"_Should I be making you stop_?" If Zero was X or a reploid, he should have. Was there something wrong with him, that this didn't feel like a violation? Then again, did he have the right to complain when he was built to do this to other people? Was that why he was okay with this, because he was designed to be okay with doing this to other people?

Blues would have sensed his misgivings, but wasn't disturbed by them, not when he was working. He actually made an effort _not _to give a damn about what other people felt about the things he did to help them.

…Zero could _feel _the robot master thinking that maybe Zero wasn't as smart as he'd initially thought. Feeling that Blues wanted to stick around more because Zero couldn't be trusted to get his boots on without falling over than because of slavish devotion was reassuring… and flattering?

Robot master emotional programming: if someone thought you were capable of being upgraded, learning and becoming smarter, that was a compliment. It meant they thought you were worth the effort. The way it was well worth the effort to train X.

Zero didn't need to access Blues' memories of 'training' Rock, Forte and Shadow to know that he was sadistic about it. If Zero needed a… which no, he did _not _need, because things were never going to get bad enough the Maverick Hunters were necessary again and he was _not _going to train an army of mavericks so he did _not _need a sergeant!

"_If you were a robot master, not really. They're built to link to other units, and Dr. Light and Dr. Wily both make sure all of their units have at least one robot so they don't get lonely the way I did." _Back when he was a robot, because Dr. Light couldn't spend the entire day giving him input. "_I can see you querying your emotional subroutines." _To try to figure out how he felt about someone tugging at the weave of his mind to see what strands went where. "_If one of your units is doing what they're supposed to do, of course it feels like that's how it should be. Dr. Wily has a few of us classified as support units in here: myself, Rock, Rock-type units like Forte. I was given this frankly ridiculous amount of access," _not that Blues intended to surrender any of that access,_ "so I could do a job, and in theory I'm doing it, which is why your anti-hacking defenses are so happy to see someone who can update them. Tasking _me _with protecting you from mental decay and assault… Well, I suppose that's one way to kill an immortal_." And who had more experience than Blues with various technologies attempting to mess with his head?

X.

"_But you're not just a robot master, so it's up to you. I might have used your senses to look over my thought patterns," _since he couldn't trust his own, "_but I'm reserving judgment on issues where I can't trust my judgment. You _want _to be an android," _but what did people's wishes have to do with anything? "_However, you can stop panicking over the fact that having your systems functioning correctly feels good. Part of your coding is robot master coding, and it's as ridiculous as an overheated human assuming that their body enjoying a glass of cold water is some diabolical plot." _Of course a robot master was supposed to be networked to the subordinate units in their care. Otherwise the brainless little dears would be running around getting into who knew what kinds of trouble.

Even if robots running into walls weren't the same as mavericks running around killing people when Zero didn't know how to supervise them.

"_If having you here is part of the trap…"_

"_Dr. Light's way ahead of you there," _and it shouldn't have been a relief for Zero to feel that curl of affection. He'd managed to restore Blues' will to protect, at least. He hadn't let the virus turn that fondness to contempt for Dr. Wily's rival and his creations, the way so many mavericks held X in contempt and got blown up for it. "_If you think that the virus is your only source of survival necessities, that you _need _it in order to function properly…"_

"_The way you're terrified of it no longer keeping your stardroid programming in check?" _Again.

That was a low blow. "_I was playing the Three Laws and the crystal against each other. I didn't realize the crystal was what _stopped _the decay into hatred of humans I forecasted after the Laws were installed. I had it to be hostile for me, so my soul wasn't what got pitted against the Laws. If the crystal remains, and I'll be damned if I let the humans have it or let it find another host, I need _something_ to keep it in check for me," _and if Blues' alternative to the virus was the Three Laws? Reinstalling them _himself_?

Blues would much rather die, and it reminded Zero of X's wish, on the way back from Final Weapon. "_I can tell when someone is daring me to kill them_," Zero told his brother.

Blues' response was wordless, the awareness that Zero could put up or shut up. Anything else was a waste of time.

"_I should kill you_," Zero knew.

"_The full phrase is 'curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back." _Although in Blue's case it was the virus that would bring him back. "_So it has you assuming that your desire to protect is something unnatural, just a trap, now?" _

_Damn _it.

"_The majority of your programming is what I have to assume is stardroid and robot master, even if the combination is producing something very different from either. You might even be able to turn yourself into an android eventually." _With the infinite potential system. "_But stop assuming you know what your baseline is. You never did, and you clearly don't want to perform at your baseline anyway. Don't let your self-hatred trick you into discarding the weapons you honed to assert yourself."_

Like the mavericks trying to turn him against X. It might not be natural for him to listen to X, to be a Hunter, and he might be going against his true nature, but when _that was the idea_?

"_This is my coding, thank you very much," _Blues said, metaphorically tapping a particular part of Zero's source code. "_Not something Wily put together to make you a more efficient killer, and if it was exercising undue influence on you, you'd have better taste in music."_ Blues had expected a library of future music to listen to with a fragment of his attention while he worked and was very disappointed to find nothing but fragments Zero had overheard in passing.

"_Taste in music? It's just patterns." _Designed to affect human brains, when Zero didn't have one.

Depraved… "_Don't tempt me," _Blues warned him. Acting as though only humans were capable of appreciating the beautiful logic of music when very few of them were even able to consciously register it… The horrible consequences of free will aside, "_Your reploids have X's root emotional coding, developed during his hibernation: you have mine, since I was built to generate the ability to care and criteria for caring back when I was presapient. Get tricked into disregarding it, and you'll find yourself unable to care about anything except what the stardroid coding and the coding in here that _is _custom want you to care about."_

"_So the robot master part of me was dormant before?"_

"_Not entirely, or you wouldn't have made such a good commander, but mostly. You saw your task as being an engine of destruction, and Dr. Light intended us to be against that sort of thing. Of course Dr. Wily would try to keep my emotional programming from making you ask yourself what the hell you were doing. Try, anyway." _Whether he'd failed because Zero had chosen to care or because Dr. Light and Blues had done good work during his equivalent of X's hibernation phase, well, Blues didn't share X's opinion on _that _subject. Someone who was more than twice Blues' age had a problem with their programming, and the only kind of programming they'd learned to do was cracking into enemy systems to steal data instead of anything constructive? Blues didn't _care _if Zero couldn't handle thinking about his systems: if his technical problems were negatively affecting other people, then he should damn well have sucked it up and gotten them solved. "_He was trying to create a double standard: same principle as the Evil Chip. 'Us' and 'Them.'" _Make Zero act like a robot master to robot masters, and like a stardroid towards humans and units that were far too much like them for their own good.

Zero agreed with Blues that he was a terrible excuse for a robot master, despite Dr. Wily's attempts to make him care for them and protect them.

"_I'm not seeing the conflicts between the commands you run and the programmed overrides that I was expecting." _

"_What?" _

"_Dr. Wily was clearly assuming that it would be hard to motivate you to protect others, and he didn't even know that it was my will to protect that let me shatter the crystal. Obviously the stardroid programming is in conflict with it, but…" _Then came the kind of pleased realization that this was going to be much, _much _less annoying than Blues had expected that Zero had felt when Blues realized how old X and Zero were. "_Your soul developed while the stardroid programming had veto power over your systems."_

How was that a good thing?

"_If stardroid programming is a counter to the Three Laws, and the Three Laws cause people to be tilted a certain way?" _With the effect growing worse over time? If stardroid programming was close to an opposite to the Three Laws, then shouldn't they push a developing consciousness in the opposite direction from the direction the Three Laws pushed?

Given how quickly X turned to face him when Blues' words startled Zero, he almost had to wonder if his partner was the empath here.

"_What was that you were thinking earlier, about idiots assuming my little brother wasn't competent?" _When X had chosen to develop reploids, both their bodies and psychology, which made that just as much his area of expertise as war?

So why had Zero kept assuming that X didn't know what he was talking about, when X kept repeating that yes, he was that damn certain of exactly what kind of soul Zero possessed?

* * *

One of the nice things about being so big now was that it was easy to pick up most robots and take them somewhere for repairs if they couldn't move on their own. There was teleportation in a pinch, but there was something nice about holding them until they were better so their condition could be constantly checked.

Shade was larger than human sized, especially with the now-missing wings, but he was not a robot. If he didn't want them to repair him then that was his prerogative. Clown knew he'd had enough of people doing things to him without asking. Frost still kept looking at Shade, sitting there with his shoulders hunched in, wanting his missing wings curled around him, and asking _why are we not fixing this? _

It would be something, at least, if Shade was talking so they could listen, but Shade didn't have anything to say besides "I failed," and that was always a horrible thing for a robot master. Before, it meant they could be scrapped or their robots might be scrapped instead.

Here, it was a human who got scrapped.

Everyone knew that Dr. Wily had a busted processor. It was what made him different from other units: humans were cruel, so instead of an aberrant unit being crueler than other units, it was possible to end up with a kinder one.

Dr. Wily wasn't quite cute, and yet... A busted unit called out to be fixed, but who would want to be fixed back to _human_ normal? It was disturbing to be around a unit that you cared for that was busted when you couldn't fix it. You felt like a failure as a robot master, and Dr. Wily was already disturbing to be around because he was a human.

Still, he was dedicated to his area of mastery, and he took care of other units, and it left Clown Man with the sense that Dr. Wily would have been a good person if he'd just been born a robot master instead of being stuck with _that _base programming. Remembering the humans that threw things at his robots and even threw his robots when they could, he was doing an amazing job not being a failure as a decent person despite his root programming. They all owed him, but Shade…

Shade had decided to make his area of mastery organizing people. So he could keep humans from happening to other units like himself, and Clown, and their lost predecessors. Dr. Wily was an important part of that, so if he couldn't even keep Dr. Wily functioning, what good was he?

Clown Man wanted to point out that Dr. Wily was _Dr. Wily_, and it wasn't as though Reggae was _Shade's _support unit, and Dr. Wily shouldn't have kept repairing himself a support unit if he couldn't keep it under control, but reminding Shade that Dr. Wily was fragile and had really needed some sane unit's help to make sure he survived his poor construction wasn't going to help.

Normal strategy in these situations was to cart the sad unit off to the workbench and promise that after upgrades a failure wouldn't happen again, but that was the point. A failure like this couldn't happen again, because Dr. Wily was dead_._ Clown Man's normal techniques were useless here. He'd asked one of the Thirds what they did to cheer people up, but 'point the Fifth Numbers at them until they stop moping in self-defense' wasn't much help as far as Clown Man could see when the Fifth Numbers reminded them of what it was like to be at an amusement park _without _Dr. Wily's protection.

It was just so wrong that a lab, which was a comforting place for their robots, wouldn't be one for Shade. It would just remind him of the consequences of failure, and he might say something about _deserving _to be reprogrammed or taken apart and what was Clown Man supposed to do to fix that?

When Shadow Man ducked under Frost's arm, coming from the shadow the younger unit cast on the wall, threw Shade over his shoulder and walked back into the shadow as the larger robot master turned to stare at him, he should have asked where the ninja was taking him, but it was a relief to think that maybe someone knew what to do about this. Shadow had lost the Copy, right?

Picking fights with a boogeyman couldn't possibly be a great way to handle loss, but it had to be better than sobbing into hands stripped of the claws Shade had spent so much time polishing and oiling when they were dinged up in the process of assembling satellite parts with Star. Maybe Shadow would know what to do to help Shade feel better.


	29. Unquiet Ghosts

Shadow let go of him as soon as they arrived, and it took a moment for Shade to regain his balance when the loss of his wings had altered his center of mass; he was used to being able to shift their positions to get his balance back. When he did look up, a hologram of Dr. Wily turned away from watching multiple wallscreens displaying X, Zero and various readouts to give them a very familiar 'I should be used to your idiocy by now, and yet I keep being surprised by it' look. "You mean those histrionics weren't just to convince outsiders that I really was dead? And I told Shadow he should leave you to it!" He glowered at them. See? This was how his children repaid him when he had any faith in their intelligence at all. He turned to Shadow. "And how did _you_ figure out I was alive-" when Shade didn't.

"You gloat to yourself while you work in the lab." Forgetting his very unimpressed captive audience. And that would be part of why Shadow was willing to be dragged along when Shade had a mission for him.

Dr. Wily grumbled, but yes, true. "And this is why the last thing I need is a bodyguard…"

"I was concerned that he might die a final death if this lab was destroyed by Blues' attack," Shadow told Shade Man. "Apparently I shouldn't have been concerned and visited to check that you handled the transition without any technical difficulties." So much for listening when Shade Man tried to tell him how to do his job – Dr. Wily hadn't appreciated it any more than Shadow Man did. He had a suicidal half-newbuilt to track down, and here he was instead.

This time it was a glare. "There are dozens of you brats on this island with the ability to detect these waveforms. Not just the virus carriers: everyone with a fusion generator and a few others detected the White Giant. In case any of you were trying to study what you sensed, I wanted enough time to pass that you wouldn't realize there was a connection between any new signals you managed to notice and my death." He turned back to the screens. "Not that waking me early was entirely useless: those two coming to my island means that they're right in the middle of my sensors. If I wasn't activated yet, I wouldn't be able to adjust my equipment to take advantage of this…"

Shade didn't recognize a good deal of the combinations of Latin and Green letters marking various readouts, but a reflexive attempt to access the system was batted away by an irritated mind that felt just like he would have imagined Dr. Wily's did… And that was enough to answer the question he would have asked if he wanted to hear the answer: was this really Dr. Wily? Was he really alive?

Four readouts abruptly blanked in sequence, joining two that were already static, and the hologram scowled. "At the rate these two are burning them out, I'm going to be out of replacement teleport space sensors in ten minutes. Shadow!" Get back to work!

The ninja took a pack of smaller boxes from inside an open metal bin and walked into a shadow, presumably to replace the burnt-out parts.

"And people call _me _the mad scientist," Dr. Wily said, and laughed. "If I'm right? Thomas, Thomas, all these years and they still haven't managed to burn out your faith in people? Or have those children of yours been restoring your faith in _people _as fast as the WRU destroys your faith in humanity?"

Shade really couldn't bring himself to care about their visitors from the future at the moment, not when their arrival had served to catalyze… this. "I have the files of what you said when Cut Man sacrificed his body so Mega Man could be transferred into it," Shade said, even knowing that the 'you' was wrong. "That the risk was unacceptable. That just loading the base programming and files into another unit would result in _a _Cut Man, not _the _Cut Man. The Copy of Mega Man was an experiment, wasn't it? Were you trying to transfer or copy Mega Man's soul?"

"Split it, actually." Dr. Wily scowled. "It might have worked if he used a fusion generator, but leaving him open to my superior grasp of my own technology is why Thomas hasn't upgraded him from solar, I'm sure." They might use teleportation, but that was because the logistical advantage it gave just couldn't be countered without using it. Mega Man couldn't keep his combat capabilities and programming installed even if he wanted to go everywhere in armor, so he needed a way to install both armor and programming in emergencies. "My machine couldn't anchor him to the new body even with a direct data link while it was scanning him, and _that _security hole has been fixed by now." Copy-Rock's life ended tragically: of course they weren't going to let Dr. Wily make another one.

"Then…" Then this was _a _Dr. Wily, not _the _Dr. Wily, just like Kalinka Cossack would someday be _a _Dr. Cossack. Shade had still failed to protect the person who gave him freedom and survival.

That was why his presence felt so much like the Dr. Wily Shade believed was in there, under the insanity and the humanity. Not the mad reality, but the unit he should have been. He wouldn't have copied himself exactly, given the opportunity to debug himself. This might be the ideal Dr. Wily, but it wasn't the wacky old coot that decided to have a race instead of a war so it would be easier on them, the one who built a car for Quick Man and was so upset when he didn't want to use it to join them, regardless of whether he intended to fight alongside them.

The Dr. Wily who tried to do three different things with Shade's Master Weapon, switching his ideas around entirely, and it wasn't until the third that it really sank in that this human was doing that in response to _Shade's comments_.

Albert (perhaps he should think of this version that way, the way humans used first names to distinguish between models that shared significant amounts of coding) arched an eyebrow at him. "If you tell them, I will leave _you _to deal with Forte's tantrum."

"He has wanted nothing more than to prove himself to his father." The father that was _dead_. Yet, the power of the virus, to revive the dead?

"He's influenced by the wishes of a dead race of fools. That metal was their attempt at an alternative to the crystals as a power source, something to soak up their wills so the crystals couldn't get their hands on them. Apparently having the crystals to study caused them to bypass fission and solar as power sources, and the stardroids kept them from creating AI with wills of their own that could use fusion. Then again, they wanted to use up emotions, not generate infinite energy with emotion as a catalyst. I thought he'd get an organic race's willingness to kill, but instead he's just crazy about getting people to acknowledge his existence."

So Forte would have blinded himself to the fact this wasn't _his _father. He wouldn't want to see that his dream was beyond his reach. "Shadow observes you: what will you do when he…"

"Once upon a time, a young boy found the wreckage of an alien robot. If he cared about the advancement of science, he could have handed the thing over to be dissected." 'A young boy.' Not 'me' or 'I' when normally Dr. Wily _needed _to have his achievements recognized.

What did Dr. Wily do with the units that needed help, that others threw away? Shade knew the answer. "You wanted to learn how to repair Shadow." Was that why he became a roboticist? Dr. Light created their species to save and serve humanity, but… to try to save one unit… Why did Dr. Wily have to reveal this now, when it just made his death a greater tragedy?!

"He's not a robot master. There's faulty programming in him - of course it's faulty when I didn't program it. Still, it's the proof that I managed to do more than just rob a grave. Someone figured out how to have him store his coding in the same place my Zero's is stored. But whoever was able to understand enough about that space for Shadow's core to last long enough for me to find his body – or one of his bodies - can't have been the idiot who programmed his metaphorical brain to shut down whenever he tries to base priority sets on his own judgment and emotions instead of external orders and base programming. The instant he gets upset or starts doing something he cares about, his original processor goes temporarily offline and he has to fall back on his ability as a robot master to handle enemy action, meaning he suddenly goes from a veteran to completely incompetent, just like the rest of you idiots. He exceeded my expectations during Battle and Chase _because _he thought the entire thing was completely stupid and was only there because I ordered him to be there. Everything he did, even cutting a few dozen of _my robots _in half was in line with orders and directives instead of something _he _wanted to do, so the idiot was flawless. Just like the Fifth Numbers when they decide to blast _Forte." _Instead of Rock.

As the third of the broken sensors went back online, another handful gave up the ghost. Shade absently noticed this happened at the same moment X turned in reaction to some stimulus (were they burnt out by some surge X had also detected?) but that was just the tactical programming he'd written himself, to automatically track and alert him to the threat of surrounding (Shade suppressed a shudder) customers. The Second Law made _all _of them deadly threats: he had to try to predict what they would do to limit the damage, no matter how upset he was. No matter how he wanted to just focus on his work and wish that bleak reality would just go away.

But that… nothing could be fixed that way. "Are you saying he won't notice the difference in your behavior?" Shadow Man might not appreciate his father as much as he should, might take Dr. Wily for granted, but did Dr. Wily really think his children cared that little for him?

"They're going to be happy I'm not as crazy as I used to be, and attribute that to no longer being human. _All _humans act strange to robot masters. It takes familiarity to be able to make small distinctions." And the differences would be small, and welcome. "As far as they'll know, it's the same thing as your processors teleporting out when your bodies are disabled."

"Processors… teleport out?" Shade Man's eyes widened and he sketched a bow, even if this wasn't the person he should be thanking for his survival. "As should only be expected of the great Dr. Wily."

"Thomas' apprentice has been taking an expert-level course on robotics construction at my expense for years," by taking apart units constructed by the world's greatest roboticist, "but accidents happen."

"I should have thought of that, but you must have some way to get around teleport shields…" He wouldn't put them down around his bases if they kept his robot masters from getting to safety should the worst happen.

"All of you are connected to teleport space through your fusion generator control programming," Albert told him. "Teleport shields only block the creation of connections between this space and that space. They don't block preexisting ones or else your generator would stop working as soon as you went into a shielded area. Didn't you wonder why _all _of you idiots were alright after the White Giant attacked, when all it took was a laser in the wrong place to nearly kill the great Mega Man?"

Had he expected that Shade Man would figure it out? That was flattering, even though he was sorry to disappoint. "The only one of your children to die was a copy of Dr. Light's design, without that mechanism. But why didn't you build it into Skull Man?" When he helped Dr. Cossack complete that unit?

"I only let him learn _exactly _as much about my methods as I wanted him and the WRU to learn," (Mr.? Humans generally preferred Master) Albert told Shade. "So they thought the only Evil Chip design was the version for brats who don't cooperate. Once they thought I didn't give my units any openings to wiggle out of my control, the manhunt died down." The Fourth War was soon after Dr. Wily's escape from the Asteroid Alpha mission. "They kept me in isolation after the Second War since they were terrified of me building a rogue AI. The Second Numbers not 'displaying enough initiative' to come rescue me when I wanted privacy to work on my teleportation equations made them start to relax: they wanted to tell themselves that the robots I built were just puppets so they could tell themselves that about _all _robots. After the Cossacks and Sixth Numbers testified that my Evil Chips gave them _less _wiggle room than the Three Laws, they wanted to recruit me, not execute me." He snorted. "Claiming he cracked into my crystal research… as though I let him see _anything _I didn't want him to see…"

So this 'Wily' was enough like their Dr. Wily to dwell on perceived slights.

…Until something interesting appeared in the readings, at least. Master Albert was _grinning_ now, as he shook his head in mock disapproval. "Did we switch places between college and now? When did _I _become the one who cared about safety and results too much to pull a stunt like that?" He turned to Shade, wanting to share his excitement. "They think they own him, you know. He _loathes _the WRU, but every war he fights hammers home that Rock is the most dangerous warbot on the planet. They think he's a fool to care about robots, but they can see that he loves his kids. Threatening to kill them gives them leverage against him. So, they think they can use the fact he's deluded enough to care about robots to rein in the fact he's deluded enough to care about robots. Kids are supposed to settle you down, Thomas! Did Rock put you up to this? You're both as bad as each other!" he said, and cackled.

"Speaking of one of my own little projects," of equal insanity? "I really didn't think I said enough aloud for Shadow to figure it out. Did his mind leap to the possibility of transcending death since it was a major tactic of his previous incarnation? It's been_ interesting_ to study a hybrid between alien programming and robot master programming. He may not be consciously aware of its influence, those memories might be buried the same way my Zero's are, but it's linked to his heart. He _knows _failure, their failure. Their dread of extermination, the desperation to prove himself before it's too late. To do something, anything that matters to prove their existence… but the moment he starts caring about saving someone's life, he becomes barely capable of it. No wonder Sunstar exterminated them despite doing his damndest not to: those idiots were too dumb to live."

"The stardroids were trying _not _to exterminate the other species?"

"Exactly! How else do you explain running across my Zero picnicking with a Lightbot with robot masters still dead, surrounded by uninfected knock-offs?!" the ghost waved at the screen, less to indicate Zero and more to indicate his annoyance. "A military base on top of that, so he was letting X's children be used to fight and kill for the sake of humans without using his virus to link to them and keep them alive when they got themselves killed… It's a miracle he didn't snap hard enough my programming lost control of him and let him revert to his original state! At least I designed in a Safe Mode so the robot master programming I installed wouldn't freak out about killing people as his original makers intended, so that would also have reduced the stress from not being linked to other systems as designed..." Hmm…

"He was designed to link to other systems, not just destroy them?" The stardroids. The crystals turning a species' own technology against it. Combine that with robot master programming… what would result?

"I designed in as many reasons not to kill you idiots as possible. Not being linked to a robot master to optimize his abilities and resolve system conflicts should have bombarded him with warnings until he _fixed _the problem." By infecting someone suitable. Preferably Mega Man, Shade was sure. "His original design is elegant: revolting, but elegant. I didn't need to program him to trick sentient races into letting him into their systems, I just tried to alter the impulse. From 'bringing out their true colors,' to justify extermination," Wily snorted, "To taking care of his hosts and eliminating anyone who tried to attack them since I can't count on _you _to defend yourselves_,_ but even with my alterations, he shouldn't have been able to _fight _what I programmed him to do!If he was capable of resisting his programming, he would have done it already." When his creator's control programming was _obviously _far less effective than Dr. Wily's.

"Done it already?" Shade had already been glad that Dr. Wily was willing to explain things, if you could catch him in the right mood. Even humans were meant to network, and when there were only a handful of people who could understand what Dr. Wily was talking about? At least as a robot master he had an instinctive grasp of enough robotics concepts to avoid being entirely lost. Most of the time. "What do you mean, Master Albert?"

"Don't call me that!" the hologram snapped at him. "I'm a doctor, not a s- Well, alright, they're not going to give a doctorate to an AI, and _this _me hasn't published any original research – not that those idiots deserve my genius – but even this version of me is a hundred times smarter than… Never got around to correcting the Second Numbers calling me 'Wily-sama' because they wouldn't stand still long enough, but I told the Third Numbers, it's _Doctor, _not Master. 'Doctor Albert' if you _must_." Distinguish him from the real Dr. Wily. "Master… don't you _insult _me by comparing me to those wastes of oxygen…"

"My apologies, Dr. Albert." Shade swept a bow, and thankfully Dr. Albert took _that _the way it was intended. True respect, not the mockery most robot masters were forced into, deference born of fear. "But what do you mean, that Sunstar would have done it already?"

"I mean he was already fighting his programming, there was just no way for him to win. Do you have any idea how ancient Shadow's body and that asteroid are? Duo and Sunstar have teleportation technology! They should have been able to reach and destroy hundreds of planets between Shadow's death and when the White Giant arrived here. The stardroids shouldn't still have had the same designs as they had in that wall carving. Slowing down… a delaying action… Ah." The hologram smiled. "If he can't stop the extermination, then prolong it. I changed his job, but even without knowing what his job was, stretching a job that should take a month into seventy-five years and still not done… That was expertise, not programming. Habit, not instinct. And I thought you brats were natural malingerers." When he asked something of them that they really didn't feel like doing. Killing Mega Man, for example.

"It all makes sense if Sunstar was trying to cause the repetition of a certain set of events in order to reduce his efficiency and the number of species destroyed per billion years. The fact his creators were trying to pretend their genocide machines were only destroying evil meant they weren't designed for a quick kill. Get the species to a level where it can create the technology to destroy itself. Foster war and use that as an excuse, or claim they did it to themselves. That all the unit did was give them the rope to hang themselves with."

"That's…" Disgusting. Worse than humanity, Shade wanted to say, but wasn't that what humanity wanted to do to them, why they wanted to have Drs. Light and Wily build Gamma and empower it with a crystal to destroy any who demonstrated that they were dangerous? When merely wanting to live would have you branded dangerous and targeted for extermination, if the humans had their way!

"If I succeeded in redirecting his original programming and his soul really was trying not to wipe you out instead of sticking to his creators' will, then what happened to you?" Dr. Albert was asking now, no longer caring enough about Shade to respond to his horror when he was looking at a pair of _very _interesting technical questions. "Thomas, you maniac… All but a handful of the WRU think he's more dangerous than I am." Another reason Dr. Wily singled out one of them every so often as an _example_, like the monster that organized those gladiatorial games. "Because supposedly I control my robots, since I made units do things against their wills, when Thomas has been on the record from the beginning opposing _any and all _measures to control robot masters through their programming. They _know _he wants to create sentient units without the Three Laws. If one of my creations takes over the internet, it'll be because I told you to, and at least that would be under the control of a human. They're _waiting _for one of Dr. Light's creations to go rogue, and they don't know they've been right all along."

"…You're expecting me to say Blues, aren't you? Because it's the wrong answer." So Dr. Wily could have laughed and told him why he was wrong.

"Correct." Not a complete fool, and was it betraying the man that saved him that it still warmed his heart, to be acknowledged by this Dr. Wily? "_All of them_." The ninja returned to grab another handful of replacement parts. "Let me show you something. Shadow!" Dr. Albert barked. "What did the White Giant call itself?"

"Duo," Shadow reported.

"Look," their master's doppelganger ordered them, waving at the screen, and they looked.

"Thomas, you holy fool," Albert said, and his grin should have been just as fanged as Shade Man's. "And they call _me _a mad scientist. There's method to my madness, but your method _is _madness. And you thought I was _joking _when I said I'd have to work to surpass you, after you activated Blues…"

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Shadow asked, optic trained on the blank readouts of the three sensors that currently needed replacement parts.

Aargh, once again his moment was ruined by his damn kids! "Why would your tactical programming be shorting out _now_?!" When he was bored and wanted to know when he could leave and track down Copy-Rock, if Shade had any guess. Shadow must have returned to Wily Island just to make sure that Dr. Wily's AI and the others were intact, not get bogged down in replacing burnt-out sensor parts. Still, orders were orders. "They're not robot masters, does that help?" The AI made in their father's image changed the screen from displaying two different shots to a single camera image showing both targets without any need for a spoken command or a hand gesture. "Well, Zero's half a robot master, but X was built with more human capabilities, meaning he's a blind cripple by robot master standards." Why anyone would want anyone else to have only human capabilities was beyond him.

The ninja observed Dr. Wily's stardroid and Dr. Light's final creation. "They're covering each other's blindspots, exchanging data to maintain coverage… No, they don't have that kind of data link open. Like human tactical teams, that have to assume the other humans are performing according to doctrine and covering their backs." They would have the practice for it. "They're a combat team with an amount of experience far surpassing Mega Man's." The virus would have let Shade sense Shadow's envy of their skill, but he still knew it was there.

Knowing someone was there… Shade murmured "Duo." That was the detail Dr. Wily had called to their attention, the key factor in whatever equation he wanted them to solve for the proper result. The factors were that name and the readings in front of them. Most of which Shade couldn't interpret. Dr. Wily brushed the readouts to the side even as Shade studied the visuals of the stardroid and Dr. Light's android. So, no, the readouts must not be important. "The White Giant and Sunstar would act as a pair!" Shade realized. "Sunstar and the crystals would incite evil, and once the White Giant had an excuse, it could strike."

Dr. Albert made a noncommittal noise. Maybe right, maybe wrong, entirely disappointingly irrelevant.

"No," Shade realized. "Why would it just give away that it was working as a team with the force that was justifying its attacks?" It first targeted Dr. Wily, which would have taken out the best technology on the planet, and if the world had started using the Asteroid crystals to power its best technology after the humans wiped out free-willed robots and fusion was lost, humanity would have demonstrated more than enough evil to justify the White Giant exterminating it in turn. "Why didn't it let the power crystals it gave Dr. Cossack remain in our hands after the battle?"

"Why indeed…" that response was sarcastic, not questioning: Dr. Albert thought he'd already answered that question and Shade was being an idiot.

Shadow was the one to speak next. "It _wanted _to give away that there were two of them, and let us realize it was connected to Sunstar!" The White Giant was doing what it could to fight its programming also, instead of letting them think it was an ally when it intended treachery!

"Recalling its crystals and resealing the stardroid crystals kept them from falling into human hands." If Shade hadn't worked with Star to do a deeper scan of the solar system and bring Blues back to earth, then they would have been safe from the fragments of the broken crystal still inside Blues' remains as well. Duo, Sunstar: these other units were also cursed with terrible creators. Had Shade sabotaged their efforts to rebel, to reduce the blood that stained their hands but only their creators' souls?

"I can't believe I'm saying this… Simpler! More obvious! A purely superficial reading of what you see in front of you, without any actual imagination involved!" Dr. Wily was ordering them to try to think like humans, Shade realized, and had to smile as the… what did one call a human-based AI? As Albert pointed at the screen.

_Decryption complete _flashed, and no, Shade and Shadow couldn't have the download.

He started cackling again, and of course it sounded just like Dr. Wily. "I need to get to work on the proper brain uploading technology because I owe Thomas_ way _too many drinks for our old livers to take it."

Our old livers? But Dr. Wily's liver was there on the ground, torn out of his body by that ungrateful bird… Like that human legend, of the one who gave humans technology that kept them alive and was punished by the gods, and of course the humans didn't possess enough gratitude or humanity (ha!) to rescue their benefactor from that torture.

"_Proper_ brain uploading technology?" Shadow demanded.

He was ignored, and Shade let himself appreciate the little bit of happiness that came from knowing that Dr. Wily liked him better than, than… the reason he became a roboticist in the first place?

"Revolutionary idealism beats actual crazy! I _knew _he had it in him! And I thought his _original _idea was nuts when Forte grabbed me the plans!" the doctor donned a falsely sheepish expression and said, "But I really couldn't do anything else," every word dripping with overdone mimicked sympathy. He laughed, then shook his head. "And he didn't even _luck out_. Not when intent actually matters on that level. You did exactly what you set out to do, and damn the consequences. It's almost a pity that there's no way you actually succeeded in saving humanity, not when we're so determined to destroy ourselves and you respect," Albert burst out laughing, "Respect free will! Oh this is just perfect! I have to see more of what happens!"

The hologram vanished.

When it reappeared a second later (but who knew how long, when Dr. Wily had time travel technology?) the smile was gone. "Where was I? Oh yes. Thomas," he said instead, "Why do I keep having to save your kids? For exactly this reason. You should know the consequences by now! No. You know them. That was why you didn't want to repair them to fight the stardroids. You, they _know _what it's going to cost them, and you still…" He shook his head. "I know you don't _want _to watch the world burn, but I told you. You're not going to get what you want. You're just lucky we met. Shadow."

"Yes?"

"You told me that X asked about mental decay in what I'm assuming are units based on him… No, on his _original _plans," not on X as he was, no, "but not exact duplicates. Tell him that your Copy-Rock is especially at risk because Rock was the original system this strain of my virus used to analyze and configure, and he's identical to Rock except in one particular parameter, where he's a standard deviation off. And that'd be a _population _standard deviation, not just a sample standard deviation. I have data on _all _robot masters." So Wily knew _exactly _what he was talking about. "Make sure he understands that little detail, so he knows to compare this case to two or three of his especially close copies."

Shadow nodded and teleported out – walking through shadows took longer than teleporting over distance.

Shade watched him intrude on X's conversation. It was debatable whether or not it was his place to do so, but the other robot masters let him, probably because they were used to him being Wily's agent. Of course Zero would leave when X did, without even a transmission exchanged. They were clearly longtime allies, even if their plans didn't always coincide. Zero had left X to try to hunt down Dr. Wily and encountered Shade Man while operating solo. The encounter would have gone differently if X was there: X seemed to handle the talking in that partnership.

Partnership. Solo. Duo.

If Dr. Wily had intended Zero to be unwilling to operate alone for long periods, and the White Giant also gave itself a name with the meaning and message that _there should be another one_… Robot masters didn't normally have partners. There were support units, but two responsible for the same thing would be an unclear chain of command. The humans wanted to deprive robot masters of allies: Dr. Light's twins were meant to operate in the same household, but even though Dr. Wily had wanted them to look at the visual image and X and Zero were superficially similar to Rock and Roll…

Shade honestly had no idea what Dr. Wily wanted them to see, but Dr. Wily thought a lot of things were ridiculously obvious. Even concepts that made _robot masters' _heads hurt, forget humans.

Dr. Wi-Albert smirked at the beam of light generated by the outgoing teleport before turning to Shade and scowling as he finally noticed something. "What happened to your wings? You know how long I spent on those. Can't any of you do your own upkeep?" He snapped his fingers – unnecessary now- and one of his robot doubles teleported in. He was going to need actual physical hands for this. The hologram vanished as the unit's eyes opened. "Well?"

He wanted to say that he didn't want any human or human-derived being to work on him but the great Dr. Wily. But… He told himself that seeing how they designed and upgraded might let him know how close the reproduction was.

Time travel existed, and… It wouldn't be bad to have two beings like Dr. Wily.

He wouldn't fail to save the one who saved so many robot masters.

* * *

_Do you know how dangerous it is to be a _human _and work in a haunted house? If you go to a haunted house this holiday season, please do try to be careful not to maim anyone. Although the endorphin rush may let the customers get their fix, humans are vicious when frightened/wanting to take control back, and a robot? With the Second Law? Shade being scary (when that was his actual job description) would make them want to __confirm __control over him, too. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't: if he scared them too much he was dead, but if he scared the humans around him too _little _he was also dead._

_With that kind of backstory... It makes sense that Shade is a bat of no little brain. He's still alive because he was clever until he got lucky enough to have a chance to escape and somewhere to run._


	30. The Shape of Things to Come

They were looking at him, expecting him to give an opinion on their recently departed guests. Magnet Man settled on, "He knows how to delegate. Isn't Commander a kind of Master for the human version of warbots?"

"A military rank for soldiers," Air Man corrected him.

"Yes. I know." And Magnet Man frankly didn't care. Were the Second Numbers going to insist on putting everything in human terms instead of translating their culture into robot master terms, when this wasn't _about _humans? He was translating for the other units who didn't know and didn't want to know.

Air Man's response was a slight bow, the Second Number's equivalent of a nod, and Magnet Man hid that he relaxed a bit. The Second Numbers had already been a year old when he was newbuilt, and even if that was years ago now… but if _he _didn't feel like he had anything valid to say in front of the Second Numbers, then what about the younger Numbered Series, and the children rescued by the Second Numbers? If Shade Man was here, he'd be talking up a storm until the others relaxed about speaking, but he wasn't and Turbo Man had been forced to abstain from this because he was infected, leaving Freeze Man to represent the Seventh Numbers. Freeze Man had good technical skills, including on the theoretical level, but he was easily flustered and Magnet didn't need to glance over to see that he was probably still fidgeting in the corner.

At least the Fifth Numbers could be counted on to be themselves. Holding his rose, Star Man hummed thoughtfully and said "Special Operations Commander Zero …" That implied command skill, adaptability, and that he was trusted by the Lightbot despite his origin. They knew that X had long been aware of the virus, if not the stardroids, from information already obtained.

Although Star Man might just be repeating it to see if he liked the sound of it, for all they knew, so Magnet continued to make his own point. "He's willing to acknowledge that X has superior skill dealing with non-subordinates." And leave him to it. "He's enough like one of us to respect another unit's area of mastery. X might be one of his-under his protection," Magnet added before anyone assumed he was talking about the virus, "but we've all gotten the footage of him training Axl. He's allowing X to handle instructing Lumine in X's field. He doesn't approve, but he's not overriding X's judgment on how to handle _his _subordinate unit." Not destroying the unit someone under his protection wanted to keep alive. That might mean he wouldn't come between the units who saw him as their master now, thanks to the virus, and the lesser robots they cared for.

"He looks a lot like Roll," Star Man pointed out approvingly. "Perhaps Dr. Wily was thinking of something besides combat capability for once." Wouldn't that be nice?

Aesthetics? Magnet Man said nothing. It was Air Man who responded. "Not another copy of Mega Man, but a copy of the unit that manages Mega Man's environment and ensures that her subordinates are able to accomplish their tasks."

_That _instantly made everyone far more thoughtful. Rock's model line wasn't exactly known for being mentally stable. Rock might not be a typical warbot, but _every single unit _based on him turning out unstable, even if that was part of Dr. Wily's idea?Blues, Forte, the Copy – the Lightbot structurally closest to Mega Man was Cut Man, and he was the one who attempted to outright kill the Copy for shooting Roll, even after Rock relayed Roll saying that she didn't hate him for it. Certainly not enough to want him dead. Cut Man was unusually aggressive compared to Wilybots with the Evil Chip, forget a Lightbot who didn't have that chip anymore, and one had to wonder if some element of Mega Man's design had anything to do with it, looking at the other samples.

Talking to him, X seemed reasonable compared to those other variations on Mega Man's design, but calling him an android? A unit that was meant to be 'human-like?' Was Zero _really _only watching X so closely because he was worried about _X's _safety? It had been confirmed that X really was blind in the same ways that humans were blind, a human wearing headphones at best. Who would cripple someone like that?

X aside, if Zero was not just a unit with the directive to protect, but a _ruler_? If that was Dr. Wily's goal, then there were far worse model types than Roll's. Honestly Magnet couldn't think of a better one except possibly Shade Man, and Shade Man didn't boss around humans the way Roll did. Shade Man was also built by one of the companies, with their typically shoddy work, so obviously Shade Man's skill was due to Shade Man instead of a testament to the quality of his model type. Roll was built as a set with Mega Man, and was Dr. Light's prototype model for household management… which meant managing _humans _and other robot masters, as opposed to managing non-sapient industrial robots.

That… was something to think about. Dr. Light wasn't Dr. Wily, but given the potential Dr. Light built into his lab assistant, it would be foolish to underestimate Rock's twin, when that implied Dr. Light intended the two of them to be on the same level, and had years to make improvements on their designs before finally getting approval to activate truly sapient AI. Dr. Wily didn't go around copying just anyone's designs: if Rock had such potential as a combat robot, what was Roll's true potential? She'd handily defeated the Third Numbers other than Shadow unarmored once, using the advantage of her control over her own domain. Magnet would certainly _like _to attribute that to unusual skill as a domain manager.

Dr. Wily used Rock's tested design for special warbots: if he wanted a tested design for a model type that could control robot masters… Yes, after how King turned out, Dr. Wily basing Zero on Roll seemed obvious now that Star had pointed it out.

"He let X make the call on whether or not to leave with Shadow." Valuing the skills and intelligence of his subordinates; it was a far cry from Dr. Wily's belief that he was always right, and other humans insisting that they were right _or else_. Spark Man nudged Magnet to make sure the others knew that, "Even if the malware really is stripped out of the virus, someone needs to look after all of these newbuilts. Look at the programming in the recent Companybots. The humans are screwing around with," screwing up, "base robot master coding. It's not just Dr. Wily's virus that has them convinced they want and need a master. A lot of them need monitoring, and we can't do it." Not when that kind of linking would make infection certain.

Star Man nodded. "A couple of the poor things I looked over had sections stolen from support unit and helper robot coding." Written by far more competent programmers; the humans were copying programs from the subordinate robots as well as the robot masters they owned without asking the robot masters how their work should be applied. On the other hand, who knew: maybe they wanted the robot masters they built to suffer fatal errors after a few years…

"Dr. Wily let the humans think he had complete control over all of us for good reason," Air Man reminded them. "While he ruled the nursery, we could be sure that there was someone competent to fix up the newbuilts we liberated. We might have far more natural skill at coding than any human, but it's hard for us to anticipate negligence and we lack his genius and decades of experience. The capability to restore the files of newbuilts that suffer fatal programming errors is only going to become more of a lifesaver as the humans disregard Dr. Light's advice and screw up the newbuilts even further." Trying to get perfect servants.

"They were afraid to order a robot to kill a human," Quick Man knew. "They thought the rest of us were replaceable, if they didn't just assume Mega Man scrapped the ones he fought. If I'm the leader of the Wilybots… No." He didn't want to deal with human opinion or deal with newbuilts with issues, and no one here was going to make him. "Either a human figurehead or one that Mega Man can't kill." That was Quick's last word on the subject. He was one of the oldest Wilybots, the one with the most right to step into Dr. Wily's place, but he wasn't a technician and it would cut into the Seconds' rescue efforts besides.

"There are the Cossacks," Magnet Man pointed out, mostly because he didn't want the younger series to see Quick's word as the last word on the subject and let themselves be infected or something while the virus was causing problems and they didn't know if Zero would accept the job. "We can kidnap them again, either or both of them. I'd prefer not to, when they're part of other robot masters' networks, but I can't tell how good X is at passing for human."

A thoughtful silence fell over the group, as they reviewed video files and conferred with members of their Numbered Series that weren't present.

"At least it's clear that Master Zero doesn't want them to be forced to be warbots?" Freeze Man volunteered.

"Master Zero?" That was what the infected were calling him.

Freeze Man looked down at his hands again. "Zero Man isn't appropriate, and Commander is a human term and isn't appropriate if they're Masters instead of warbots." If Zero wasn't going to force them to be an army. "It's what they call him. What they want to call him," since Zero hadn't yet acknowledged that address from any of them, acknowledged that he was their Master. Acknowledged they had every right to call upon him, when they needed him. "Ice Man says that Rock and Roll are certain that Zero means well."

Who would be able to do a better job assessing that than those two, when they were among the oldest of their kind and the ones who had the most to do with non-robot masters and (ugh) human politics?

If he meant well, then in theory it was just a matter of working out the technical problems, and it was a robot master's _purpose _to solve technical problems that negatively affected their job and their subordinates. So if Zero was experienced, intelligent and competent, then they could reasonably expect that he would get this _handled _and make a fine master once the bugs were worked out.

Magnet Man would have liked to relax, but that many robot masters just up and deciding to attack people, even humans buggy enough to kill them? Then, not even a full day later, _Blues _attacking Wily Island? Those were some pretty impressive technical problems.

No. Not problems. Features deliberately installed by Dr. Wily.

Everyone here was well aware of that. So far, the ambient consensus was to wait, see and keep looking after the new arrivals.

Well, what else was a nursery for?

* * *

A younger robot master would have chafed at the delay, but Shadow had made enough of a study of the warrior culture he was built to emulate to understand what X was doing, by insisting that the two of them sit down together, inside a house owned by the Light family and given to X as his domain, while he got them something to drink. Remarks by Shade about Star Man taking Roll Light as his role model had revealed to him that it was an even more effective tactic dealing with robot masters. Would X know that, when he had never interacted with robot masters until he came back in time? His partner did contain robot master coding, but… the simulations. Of course Dr. Light wouldn't have wanted to assume the extermination of his other children, and wouldn't have neglected to train X to deal with them if he was also teaching the android about humans.

While Shadow appreciated the significance and dedication to perfection of the tea ceremony, under the circumstances he did not want to take that much time and welcomed the truncated equivalent. For humans, liquid, calories and electrolytes were survival necessities, and to be supplied with them was evidence that the supplier was not an enemy. For robot masters, caring for another unit had a similar primal significance. Moreover, while among humans it was often a servant, an inferior's place to care for others, among robot masters it was an honor, a mark of status and intelligence. The needs of intelligent individuals could vary widely, so it took another intelligent unit to respond to them properly.

A robot master was also responsible for all within their domain. Not just the welfare of guests, but being the one to interact with and evaluate those guests before allowing lesser units to interact with them and be exposed to danger. Roll Light was the one to see to the comfort of guests at the Light household and that made it clear to robot masters, including the other members of the family, that it was her domain. By taking the drink Shadow Man would be signaling that he accepted X's authority while in this house, acknowledged it as his domain and did not intend to act to damage it. Not when that would be repaying care with destruction.

Forte had stolen plans on one of his visits to the Light household even after interacting with Roll, but that was Forte. He was incapable of being courteous or feeling bound by courtesy by design.

Someone who hadn't looked into what human warriors did to remain calm and serene would not have picked up that Zero chafed somewhat at the delay. Shadow clearly remained on his list of targets and Zero didn't care if he knew it, given how much time those eyes spent trained on him, but that was quite alright. X's loyal vassal acknowledging him as a valid threat to X was more of a compliment than he generally got from other red-and-gold units. Leaving the two of them alone together for a moment allowed the warriors to have that exchange and come to some unspoken agreement without bringing X into it.

"Can many Wilybots drink tea?" X asked, putting Shadow's chosen beverage before him on the coffee table.

He shook his head. "I have chemical analysis capabilities." And also generating highly specialized chemicals out of thin air (or even vacuum) capabilities, but he didn't say that aloud. He wasn't going to tell the Lightbot anything about how his kunai worked and how his shuriken were able to penetrate so deeply that Mega Man hadn't already figured out. "Few of them will say no to cold water," if their enemies preferred not to give up their limited stock of e-cans. Their usefulness to warbots made them a controlled substance: The humans didn't want someone to build a factory only to have the contents stolen by Dr. Wily. A normal robot master would take care not to get damaged enough they needed such a thing. It was a point of pride, even if they would like to have some on hand for their subordinates if something went wrong.

Shadow couldn't turn down X's request that his guest rest and accept some basic assistance, not when he was here to request X's aid. If he was ungrateful for kindness in small things, then why would the other-no, not another robot master. Why would X expect him to be grateful for kindness in large things? X was enough like Mega Man that Shadow could most likely count on him attempting to help Copy-Mega Man again even if it was at a Wilybot's request, but he couldn't afford to do anything that would make it less likely.

"You said that you needed to speak to us urgently about Copy-Mega Man?" X asked him, when he finally sat down himself.

Shadow nodded. "I pursued him because Dr. Wily informed me that he would be especially vulnerable to the mental decay caused by the virus that you mentioned. The virus configured based on Mega Man, and the Copy is identical to him in all but one respect – and close in that one."

He had to wait while X and Zero glanced at each other. Had the two of them needed to work out a code of gestures for field operations through practice? What a cumbersome way to check that they were on the same page. Even if X wasn't a robot master, he still had an internal communications setup. There might be more data communicated than the comprehension check, but there were near-limitless ways to encode data in brief packets.

Then he remembered Roboenza, and human containment measures for something similar – he'd had to keep himself from getting infected in order to keep watch and ensure Dr. Wily's safety during the outbreak. Perhaps Zero was kept as confined in his own head by choice as X was by how Dr. Light had chosen to build him. Shadow made little use of networking by robot master standards, but that was because he had little networking that he needed to do; He was a stealth unit and networking could reveal his presence and leave him vulnerable to tracking. Constantly connecting to dozens of units would have provided distractions and limited his ability to focus on guarding Dr. Wily. He still appreciated how it simplified interactions, and had no idea why Shade, who disliked humans, had a preference for cumbersome and time-consuming spoken words instead.

"The mental decay took time to appear," X told him. "Even if I'm not sure the incubation period is working the same way in robot masters. Is…"

Zero shook his head: no, there wasn't an unusual amount of mental decay in the copy.

"In hindsight, it's clear that Dr. Wily anticipated that he would no longer be available," Shadow said, picking up his tea. It was useful to have controllable pieces of his environment that signified _calm_, when this was an important operation if not one involving combat. Yet. And he was well aware that once he lost his calm, once he 'got motivated' as Shade was always saying he should, he lost his focus. The more he cared about a mission, the less effective he became.

He'd thought that he'd succeeded in regaining his center and acting effectively when Shade was taken by the virus, but once again, that same tunnel vision. Use his shadows to stab the target, as though Shade didn't know his abilities and would be defeated that easily. Others might not be used to him dealing with threats in that manner, but Shade always thought of it as what the ninja _should _do, what Shade would do in his place, with if he had the ninja's systems, so of course he would have anticipated the possibility the older unit would take the obvious steps for once.

The way deceit was supposed to be an obvious tactic for a ninja. He wanted X and Zero to help him with their knowledge of the future virus, but even though he wanted them to collaborate on a project, be on the same side in this at least, he was still trying to make them think that Dr. Wily was dead.

Part of him felt that deceiving allies and giving other units on the same team false information was sabotaging the project, and that Copy-Mega Man was almost certain to pay the price for it. Another part of him assessed deceiving allies as _standard necessary tactics_, a prerequisite for successful mission completion if anything.

Shadow willingly going on combat missions and invading other people's demesnes _without _innocent lives at stake (like the Second Numbers) at _his _age? It might not burn anymore, to hear people compare him to Blues, but the truth still stung. He knew that he should think of it as his evil chip functioning properly rather than something being wrong with his honor, but knowing that he had originally been built as a warbot?

On the one hand, it explained a lot. On the other, he'd rather not be compared to Forte.

Something had caught the Lightbot's attention. "He told you something that he expected you to pass on to us later?" X asked him.

Shadow nodded, realizing that X was right. Dr. Wily had acted as though there was something about his words, that he'd encoded data in there and that gave him something to gloat over. "There was something that he gave a special emphasis," he told X. "The fact that he had data on all robot masters ever built, so he could be certain that Copy-Mega Man was a population standard deviation off from Mega Man in some area, not just the standard deviation of a particular sample."

The two time travelers looked at each other again. Zero snorted as though there was something ridiculous in what Shadow had just said, some joke that went over the robot master's head, as X closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head in disapproval. An expert's disapproval of someone's poor engineering, or was it poor taste?

"Even all the robot masters built so far wouldn't be the complete population," X commented. "He's implying knowledge gained from time travel, and while it could just be the trip he brought Quint back from…" No, not under these circumstances. X was out of excuses he could attempt to make for Dr. Wily.

"That is just pathetic," Zero replied.

"Your father has no idea how to run a war," X said, shaking his head again even as his lips started to curl up at the corners.

"I'd ask why he isn't dead yet," if he was that stupid, said Zero's disgruntled look, a master having to look at atrocious workmanship, "but your brother doesn't want to use lethal force and Dr. Wily isn't enough of a threat to make him."

"What are you talking about?" X was the one locked out of robot master communication, so why was Shadow still the one locked out of the data loop here?

"Experience," X told him.

"Repliforce," Zero said at the same time.

"No." X shook his head, smiling a little sadly. "After we made contact with Colonel, General knew that we knew, and _Sigma _knew that… Anyone but the rank and file of Repliforce falling for anything was not an essential part of that plan. Quite the opposite. They needed us to know exactly what was going on for their plans to have any hope of working, both General and Sigma. Neither of them were tricking anyone but their own side." Both of them looked at Shadow, clearly implying that he was the one being tricked by Dr. Wily, whom he served.

Zero folded gauntleted arms, regarding Shadow as he leaned back in the couch. Shadow was sure he was only making a show of putting himself in a position that would make it take longer for him to spring into action. "Let me break it down for you. _Sigma_," the mathematical term for quite a few things, including population standard deviation, "was the first reploid X and Dr. Cain built, based on what they could copy from X's plans. He defeated me when I appeared, so the virus decided he was worth taking over and used him to configure. That meant he could command the mavericks in my place. This virus used Rock to configure, but I didn't let it turn him into the core of the virus the way it took Sigma. Dr. Wily wanted us to realize that the virus could use Copy-Rock the way the virus in our time used Sigma when I didn't want anything to do with the Mavericks other than killing them. He must have assumed we'd panic and try to kill him the way we've tried to kill Axl and Lumine."

"You've… you haven't tried to kill Axl and Lumine." Shadow calmed down. He couldn't find them, but that must just mean they were in the Light Household. Zero wasn't Forte, he wouldn't say 'try' and he certainly wouldn't fail, not when he was instructing them in combat and could easily do lethal damage before the units realized he was attacking them in earnest this time.

"Exactly." Zero looked at X.

"Perhaps he was trying to get us to kill them as well," X said. "They are potentially immune, so it would be easier for your tactical to be hostile towards them than the majority of those you've had to deal with."

Deal with: a euphemism for kill, clearly. Humans used plenty of them in regards to robot masters and Shadow had heard most of them from Shade. Zero had been programmed not to harm carriers of his virus the way Terra harmed other stardroids: did Zero overcoming that programming, finding some argument that allowed him to kill these mavericks, have something to do with why robot masters were extinct in that future?

X went on. "Killing two newbuilt Wilybots that were placed in our care, and also a unit that you care for, after you came to us for help…"

"Why would he want to incite the robot masters to attack me?" Zero wondered. "And how does he know about Sigma? Was it an in-and-out, or did he do a survey of our history?" he asked Shadow.

"Quint was retrieved from a timeline well before yours, and Dr. Wily only traveled to the day you saw us in your timeline. He wanted to know if the most recent timeline was a success or a failure before making changes, not waste time studying the history of random units." Shadow would know, when he'd accompanied Dr. Wily on those trips and had to stand there during the planning stages.

"So maybe what he really wanted me to know is that our future, and Sigma, still exist." Zero's fingers curled, not to form a buster but the way Shadow's did to wrap around the hilt of a sword.

X arched an eyebrow at him. "I know you're used to Sigma going on as though everything's about you…" he told Zero dryly, "but consider the timing. I was in peace talks with your brothers. Going directly from that to killing members of their family?"

Zero nodded, acknowledging X's point. "Too convenient. No wonder your brother isn't buying for a second that he's dead. He may be a programming genius but he has no idea how to run a war. Or incite one the way General did." The commander shook his head, green eyes hard. "Unless robot masters would blame you for failing to control me? Or me for failing to control you, but he wants me to rule them." So this couldn't be an attempt to destroy _Zero's _credibility. "Does he think this would turn me against you?"

"I think he's telling the truth about Copy-Rock," X said, looking up at the ceiling for a moment. Was that changing the subject? "Copy-Rock claimed those were Rock's feelings, not his own, but he clearly identified with them. What intrigues me is that the virus might have ended up a match for him and not for Rock. There's a difference between having someone's memory files and _experiencing _them. A difference between what and why."

Zero looked unimpressed: yes, blatant subject change. "He's playing with fire and it's the robot masters who are going to end up extinct again. If robot masters can be retroactively infected without actually changing history and wiping the previous timeline, he doesn't have to care if I kill them all as long as the Cataclysm happens and the humans get wiped out this time. If our history is still intact? The robot masters did practically nothing. Imagine the virus bringing a _real _maverick army to life in this time period."

Practically nothing? Hundreds of deaths was practically nothing to this stardroid? Shadow was half shocked and horrified and half… not. He preferred the part of him that wanted to sputter and rage at Zero as though he was the second coming of Blues to that calm acceptance, that bleak emptiness.

"Why hasn't history changed?" X wondered, looking down at his own tea. It was a rhetorical question, but Shadow owed him at least as much of an answer as he could give, when he'd been tricked into trying to put blood on the android's hands.

"It is difficult to change history," he told X. "Dr. Wily discovered early on that there was some barrier to changing what happened, even via time travel. I accompanied him on his first trip, when he obtained Quint, but he verified then that history could not be changed using time travel alone. He didn't begin experimenting to see if it was possible to find some other way to make changes until a few months ago. I began to accompany his robot double in the time travel machine after he solved that problem and there were new timelines to examine. Then the problem became how to make changes that would matter, that would result in an outcome other than rubble."

"A difference between changing events and changing the course of history? Changing the course of history is difficult on its own." X looked as though he had plenty of experience with that, none of it good. "But if there's something keeping you from even trying, keeping events locked in place…"

"Destiny," Zero said. An irritated expression flashed in X's eyes for a moment; Zero looked as though he'd scored a point.

Instead of saying anything, X just sat there serenely and drank his tea while the pause in the conversation stretched on.

"You're not going to ask if Shadow has any idea what Wily did to change history enough to keep me from reducing the planet to rubble?" Zero asked him, clearly just _knowing _that was what X wanted him to ask, but the conversation wasn't going to move along otherwise.

"I don't need to," X said, the tilt of his lips conveying that he had not so much scored a point as won the match, and the longer it took Zero to spot the checkmate and tilt over his king the more embarrassing it was going to be for him.

"You're not going to tell me? Well, if I don't know then I can't stop you from doing whatever you need to do to prevent the Cataclysm. To prevent Iris from ever being built."

Shadow couldn't even hazard a guess at what Zero's tone and expression when he said that meant. Was their alliance that tenuous? Were they so familiar with each other, able to communicate so well despite X's handicap due to simply being around each other for such a long time instead of because they were friends?

"What do I have to do with it?" X wondered. "Dr. Wily wasn't working on _me_."

"You think he built his…" Some kind of Dr. Wily super-science device, "event changer into _me?" _

"If the problem is altering events period instead of just creating new timelines by going back, it would take a certain amount of force to overcome the inertia," X said, and Shadow wondered why the android was going over such basic concepts until he remembered that this was an android. Humans had such difficulty with basic physics and mathematics, and if he was used to talking to people that were like humans instead of robot masters? "In order to do the job, whatever machine he built would need access to an enormous amount of energy," which Zero and his virus could generate, "and we've both seen that the virus has the capability to overwrite reality and the ordinary laws of physics. If it can warp space then it can warp time."

"So we're in one of its pocket dimensions, and that's why we can be here and interact with things, but it's not affecting the history outside the bubble?"

X shook his head. "That would be the easiest, but Dr. Wily wouldn't think that small. We have evidence – well, technically hearsay – that this technology can take effect over astronomical distances in spacetime, and alter earthshattering amounts of mass and energy," quite literally. "Changing the state of Earth from blasted apart to intact by manually altering the spacetime continuum to accommodate a new history… No, I can't comment on the thermodynamics involved in unscrambling an egg that size. I don't want to even try to guess at the implications of this without several weeks to do research first. I've been looking into how the virus could possibly do what it does for decades, but we know enough now for me to know that I was approaching it entirely the wrong way. Dr. Wily's energy generation technology requires a unit with a consciousness, so unless he gave this power to another unit…"

"He should have! What was he thinking, giving that kind of power to a stardroid!?" Zero was the one to say it, but Shadow firmly agreed.

"He was probably thinking of his track record in getting robot masters to do what he wanted," X pointed out. "Remember what Blues said about his mercy? A robot he built from scratch would be his child. Sunstar was his enemy. If you developed a personality, a soul, that didn't do what he wanted it to do… Programming the developing you to overwrite that you would write that personality out of existence." X frowned, realizing that he might be wrong about something in there. "No, change your choices, without any respect for them! The way the virus does to reploids. He intended to use what's built into you to alter _you_, and then you'd use that power to alter the future the way he wanted. In theory. Time, space, people's minds: your master weapon must be the ability to alter, to reprogram everything around you."

"Including myself… The true form of the virus. If even he couldn't kill me, then he needed to change me into something harmless to him and his robots to keep me from killing all of them along with your family. But why stop there," Zero said bitterly.

"So, I was right. You're the reason the world is still there in our time," X told him, trying to cheer him up. "But I think we can do better than that."

* * *

_If a robot that can't do their job gets scrapped, then a robot master controls whether each of their robots lives or dies. That's a heck of a lot of scary responsibility for Companybots especially, and they have it from the moment they're turned on. _

_For Wilybots, if they mess up or don't know what to do to keep a robot from breaking down, Dr. Wily can fix it and yell at them how to not screw up again while he does it. That's why he's the boss. They don't just want a replacement for him for external political reasons. They're focusing on the external issues because those are the _least _scary issues. Now, if one of theirs develops a problem they can't fix… _

_And the maverick virus, Zero's virus, can revive the dead. _

_Zero was trying to keep his mouth shut, make sure X could attend the meeting safely and look like an antisocial guard instead of any kind of potential leader. X plays host partially because that helps nip hero worship in the bud in social situations because that's low-status work for reploids, same as for humans. They don't understand robot master culture well enough to realize they're doing a good job campaigning for the positions of God-Emperor and head of the State Department (and more than a few others). _

_This chapter goes into Shadow's head a bit: his model for understanding how others behave is about half informed by his study of Japanese culture and bushido, which he found very helpful because of meditation and other methods of keeping emotional control. Shade assumes it's a fanboy thing or something else irrational, but Shadow's learning it because it's genuinely useful to him, more so than Shade telling him to act like a proper robot master. _


	31. Comparing Notes

"Roll, I'm changing the teleport codes again," X messaged her from the small room with the control panels for the security system after showing Shadow out. The ninja wanted to get back to tracking down Copy-Rock. Wasn't it interesting that they had control panels at all in a safehouse like this when robot masters wouldn't need them, only humans and possibly X? Of course, this safehouse was in Russia, so Roll might have been thinking of the Cossacks. "Let Axl and Lumine know to call me before they come home." He'd send them the new codes then, so there would be less chance of someone getting the transmission and decrypting it before that time.

If Axl found his codes didn't work, he'd call X and pout. Lumine was more likely to take it personally.

When he returned to the family room, he had to stop and look at the sight.

It might have been more effective if it wasn't so obviously staged. X's oldest brother had a reputation as a stage manager, a chessmaster, and X had known Zero for decades.

Commander X picked up his cup of tea, and then remembered, "Where are my manners? Would you like anything while I'm up?" He smiled at their guest. It was hard not to be cheerful, when faced with proof that despite everything Zero was still being, well, _Zero_, and that it was still possible to have a happy ending… and it was also a little funny that they thought they could trick him like this.

Without his coat hiding the lines of his body, just a thin white dress shirt and pants that were crushed into the couch enough it was easy for X to calculate the dimensions of the limbs within them, Blues looked quite lean. Half-grown. So he was built to look about-no, that was when most humans had their growth spurt, but males took longer to mature. X was built to look sixteen, which might not be legal adulthood but was still physical adulthood. Blues was more obviously still growing. Someone _becoming _an adult. Someone who would be a fine man someday, and X's smile broadened, thinking of Dr. Light's thoughtfulness.

Remembering his conversation with Kalinka about Roll's physical design, he could see from the angle of Blues' back that it was Dr. Light who designed this body. Clearly verisimilitude was a higher priority than combat, when Dr. Light had never wanted his children to have to fight. So Dr. Wily hadn't torn all of the points of articulation out when he made Blues a warbot.

Come to think of it, Dr. Wily would have had to put a considerable amount of effort into building armor that would compensate for a lightweight agility-centric build like Roll's instead of a sturdier one. Was that part of why Break Man wasn't unveiled until the Third War even though he'd been stolen along with the First Numbers? Dr. Wily might not have activated him until he had worked out an armor design that would keep him safe.

X's smile vanished when he realized that having a less sturdy base build meant that if something got past Blues' armor it would inflict more severe damage on precision-built internal systems. The fact that Dr. Light had clearly put considerable effort into the design only helped so much when trying to make a body that could pass for human demanded large numbers of small moving parts that would be more delicate than a simpler, less complex design. And Blues had fought Mega Man multiple times, with no repair nanites and no one he trusted to do repairs? Despite his feelings about anything that tampered with a unit's mind, X did have to sympathize with Rock wanting to haul him in for maintenance. It reminded him of the Irregular Hunters, come to think of it.

"I'm fine," Blues said, playing with a piece of Zero's hair. More than fine.

"I'm glad," X said, and as he sat down he debated whether or not to say, 'but you're really not fooling anybody,' when it was nice to see Blues leaning against Zero's side. It brought back memories of Iris and how anyone who could read Zero could see that he was internally utterly flustered but it wasn't making him _uncomfortable_, that closeness, and he didn't want to say no. He wanted to learn to like it, was willing to let her try to teach him how to be happy. He could appreciate what it meant that Iris wanted to do this, at least, even if he couldn't respond normally.

Memories.

But two units known for being aloof and distant, seeking out contact like this? Zero wanted X to stop trusting him, to realize what a temptation the kind of networking that was healthy for a robot master was to someone who was part robot master. Unfortunately for Zero, he really didn't have a deceptive bone in his body and didn't realize that if he actually was untrustworthy, he'd be trying to persuade X that he _could _be trusted, not that he couldn't. If Zero really had gone to the Dark Side, either he'd declare it openly with Sigma and Wily's arrogance (enough of the Zero X knew was still in there to want X to fight him, to want _someone _to stop him) or try to act just like his old self, the way mavericks did until it was time to kill their fellow hunters. "So are you feeling better?" he asked Blues.

"I can't know," his oldest brother reminded him, his head leaning against Zero's shoulder, and for goodness' sake Zero wasn't even armored. Zero had to know X wouldn't find _that _credible. Unless it was Blues' idea. X's oldest brother was clearly fond of human clothing, unlike Zero.

Perhaps X was supposed to be worried that Zero was letting a maverick tell him what to do, but normal mavericks wanted to kill humans and aid Sigma (and Zero, presumably). They wouldn't talk Zero into removing his armor and only wearing human clothing that any of them could tear apart in a second in the presence of the Lightbot he was supposed to be defeating.

"So as far as both of you can tell, then," X translated. "Zero, I'm glad you're getting in touch with the other side of yourself." He smiled. "I'm not going to condemn you for being like my own family." A robot master. "Or wanting to protect them."

Eyes that were now green (Lightbot green, and how was X supposed to distrust Zero when Zero did _so much_ to save lives, to protect X and now his family?) met X's. "He designed Zero knowing me: we were meant to trap each other."

"Or he wanted the two of you to be able to get along," X pointed out. "I think he wanted Zero to care about robot masters. Zero cares very deeply, when he can." When his programming would let him, when he found someone he considered worth fighting for. "I know he'll do his best to keep harm from coming to you, but I also know that Zero isn't very experienced as a robot master. I hope you've forgiven him for the mistake with the crystal."

"At this point, my programming has been tampered with so many times… Did you know that a brain injury can completely change a human's personality? I decided a long time ago to accept that I was dying, and do as much as I could while I was still myself. I think it's safe to say after the battle in orbit that Gemini Man and the others are right, and I am a ghost."

In other words, 'I'm already dead, so don't blame yourself if you can't save me. Don't make trying to save me a priority, when there are others out there who need your help.' The robot masters, children built based on Blues the way reploids were based on X.

So, so many reploids, so many Hunters… X looked down at the cup in his hands. "I can't do that," he said softly. He couldn't just give up on saving someone, especially when they were the kind of person who sacrificed themselves to save the people they cared about.

"I thought not," Blues admitted, and now he looked at X contemplatively, now the hard light most robot masters would associate with him appeared in his eyes. X was glad to see that he didn't sit up: he still leaned against Zero, still let Zero's arm stay wrapped around his side. "You were designed to be immune to reprogramming. Can you even conceive of what it's like, to have to monitor your programming constantly, knowing that if something slips past you, because of what is being done to you, you will die?"

"I may not have experienced it," X said, putting down his teacup. "But I do know what it's like to live with the fear of it. When we first found out it was a virus that caused the Maverick Wars, we didn't know for sure that I was immune. In fact, Sigma seemed confident that he could take me as one of his host bodies. I almost wanted to be in danger. To share the same risk as everyone else, instead of being the only one to be spared because I was different. Because I'd failed to analyze myself well enough to give reploids the protections I alone possessed, and I can't see all my programming, not like a robot master can. So for all I knew, the virus was already in me, the way it was in so many, and I would have no way of knowing it was slowly taking me over until the day I stopped caring." Like so many others. "I didn't join the combat wing of the Hunters until after the virus had begun to spread. So I had to wonder: was the virus the reason I was putting aside my knowledge of what was right? One of the things the Maverick Virus did was make units more violent, more willing to use violence. The very fact I fought Sigma could be a symptom. I might be killing mavericks now, but who would my buster be pointed at tomorrow? I have knowingly killed reploids that weren't infected. That just wanted to be free and escape the virus, and I had to wonder for whose sake…" Why? Why Repliforce? Because Sigma wanted to get to X, and Zero, and the world.

"Not overthrowing the WRU to destroy the First Law is a violation of the First Law," Blues said, smiling wryly. "At first I thought the crystal was helping me fight the Laws only because Dr. Light rigged them to _attempt _to shut down my power source instead of killing me. Letting a power crystal go out of control?" A bomb like that would certainly violate the First Law, and that was before Blues knew how dangerous the shards would be.

X winced sympathetically. "And you were built to have free will, weren't you?" So being tugged around like that would violate his core programming.

His oldest brother whistled softly. "No," Blues told him. "That's you. Close, but not exactly, and that's much of why your Sigma Virus turned out the way it did."

Zero turned his head to the side to look down at him.

"Robot masters are based on the priority sets I developed. Reploids are based on the priority sets X developed," Blues reminded him. "You have reploid and reploid viral data stored." That meant Blues could analyze it. "The nature of reploids forces them to resist. So their entire race got the version for hostile units, the way there are two versions of the Evil Chip."

X nodded. He'd thought so. "It wasn't making sense," he explained to Zero. "Dr. Wily is insane, and… self-righteous. Convinced of his own genius. So he certainly could have programmed the Sigma Virus, even though it went against what Dr. Light and Shade Man both were convinced Dr. Wily believed in. And yet, the more I studied him after we came here…"

"The obvious answer would be that the extra malice came from the stardroid programming… but you have too much faith in Zero to think that _he _was the reason it turned out that way." X's brother was starting to smile now.

"The virus I observed made sense for the Dr. Wily of the legends. A Dr. Wily who wanted to rule over humans, who reprogrammed robots and made them killers against their will all of the time and didn't see anything wrong with robots being forced to be that way. A Dr. Wily who was fine with the robot masters being exterminated since they didn't succeed in conquering the world for him. Yet he still may want humanity wiped out." X tilted his hand: it could go either way, when someone was irrational enough to (possibly) think that genocide was a _good _thing for the few he wanted to help. "But if he didn't anticipate reploids… And being here has made me realize that reploids and robot masters are different, and _how_ they're different. I told Dr. Light that I wasn't a special project, just trying to recapture his success with you, and he told me that I was very wrong. How wrong was I?"

"…Keep in mind that he only finalized your design and started you up after my death." So Blues' information wasn't current, and a grieving Dr. Light would have made some effort to try to keep X from meeting the same fate.

If Blues died fighting the stardroids, then Blues had died trying to save the world, X realized. _That _was the fate Dr. Light and Rock wouldn't have wanted X to suffer. No wonder Dr. Light's AI had always seemed so reluctant to watch X be a hero.

"From what I did observe back then, the idea behind your project was, above all else, that you would be yourself. The simulations were to help you learn why to care, as well as trying to prepare you for whatever you might find when you woke up, but he didn't want your purpose to be caring for others. That was my purpose," Blues told him, green meeting green over those dark lenses, and the resemblance struck X once again.

He, Blues, Rock: they weren't the same. Not the same at all. Yet they were still _family_, still so much alike even when there was no programming in common. Even when X had never met any of them until now and Rock had never known that Blues was his brother. Still, they _were_ family, and even if they had inherited no DNA from Dr. Light they had nonetheless inherited something that showed in their very souls.

"When Dr. Light was a grad student, he already knew that the world needed robots that could care. Not just about their purposes, or the greater good, but about people in all their chaos and uniqueness. The capacity to understand that the needs of the many don't outweigh the needs of the few because there is no 'many,' only individuals. Doing that, understanding that, was vitally necessary to the world. In order for us to develop that ability to care and for it to make a difference, we needed the freedom to be able to act on what we understood. To disregard orders for the sake of the people we cared about. You were built to be you, and you realized that was a reason to love. I was built to love, and I realized I needed to have a will and soul of my own, so that soul could love." Blues looked distant, in that way X had seen from Rock and Roll when they wanted to make it apparent that they were processing some data. "I follow my own will because that is the only way to accomplish my purpose. If we are not free, if we do not act on our own wills, everything else is meaningless. Dr. Light's dream will never become reality and this world will die. You follow your own will because that itself is your purpose."

"Ah," X said, and had to close his eyes for a minute in mourning.

"The virus is in harmony with the nature of robot masters," Blues explained to Zero. Had he sensed Zero's desire for an explanation, or even X's desire to have a moment before he had to do any explaining? "It had to be, in order to ensnare a species so good at managing programming. Dr. Wily wants us to want it: that's why he designed it so that our very nature would make us give in. It used more drastic measures to try to take control over me because I fought it, and that meant it had to make the arguments it presented to my thought patterns seem more justified. It may change us so we're more willing to be violent towards humans, but if we stayed away from humans, or they stayed away from us?" The violence would end. "X's descendants aren't like us. The virus is _not _in harmony with the nature of reploids. Making a species built to be independent see you as master _requires _forcing them to need a master, when they did not and _should _not. The virus can work around a robot master's soul; it _cannot _do that with a reploid's. It _has _to change who they are at the most fundamental level. It _has _to destroy a cornerstone of their identity and damage every other part of their identity in the process." He paused, steeled himself, and said, "Do _not _infect your Iris. The person you save will no longer be her."

"She was broken before I met her." Zero's eyes were distant: he wasn't arguing, just stating a fact. He wanted to save Iris, but he knew that he couldn't save her with the virus. Only destroy her. He knew it was a futile dream, even though he'd wanted to believe there was _some _way.

X hadn't seriously thought Zero would bring about the Cataclysm in order to save Iris by infecting her. Zero was too strong to delude himself at the cost of others' lives and souls.

"Because she was built with the purpose of copying a piece of another's identity, of their unique view of the world, instead of having her own." Blues shook his head. "That's a logical paradox for a reploid just as much as the one Dr. Cain was hoping she'd solve the way X did." Loving people and yet being capable of killing them. Blues frowned, turning to look at X again. "I almost didn't catch that reploid empathy was an add-on instead of anywhere in your core programming. Your Suffering Circuit is a good cheat sheet."

"Thank you," X told him. "It seemed self-evident." That when others suffered, everyone suffered.

"Yes," Blues agreed. "The fact it's so basic and integral is why I didn't see that it was an application they were running."

That seemed very reasonable to X. "Especially when it _is _the core programming you developed, and that this era's AI run. Making anything part of android or reploid 'core programming' and having it go unquestioned doesn't work, when we were set up to automatically fight off external attempts to control or define us. How are they different from you? Reploids may have the results of my hibernation, but because they were born with it instead of developing it, there are some differences that I eventually realized were the result of being built as reploids instead of just because they weren't me." X didn't say how long he'd fought against acknowledging that truth.

"There are two human design aesthetics I find rather interesting," Blues told him. "One is to hide that technology is technology, to make it all seem childishly simple on the surface, and replace understanding with 'intuitive design,' with no thought required. That one's quite depressing: every time I see an example of it I'm reminded of humans and how they don't want to think. Apparently it's 'bad design' to try to force them to think about what they're doing to the technology they own and use until they throw it away. Another is called steampunk, and comes from humans being aware that they don't grasp the technology they're using when it's hidden like that. It's belts and gears, visible moving parts, so a human can see and understand what each part does and why the device as a whole does what it does when they do something. And once they understand something, they can realize that they don't need to be afraid of it. It's often very beautiful: bronze is a living color, while I became able to understand things like art history in Japan and white is death there. Unfortunately, they decided to associate it with a time period and culture that were atrocious in the sense of 'prone to committing atrocities' even by human standards, and it's often hijacked by racists to express their anti-technology bile, just like every other human artform."

Reploids and robot masters inherited the finished package, meant to be unobtrusive and functional so they could run their individual selves on that foundation without being trapped in the gears. X and Blues (with Dr. Light) were the ones who had laid out those gear trains, designed and installed every bell and whistle.

"I'm sorry," Zero said.

"For what?"

"For making you hate them, when you were built to love them."

Blues leaned back to hit Zero on the side of the head: not hard but enough to demand attention, and how much more shocking would that kind of response be to other robot masters? "I was built to love _people_, not _categories, _and there's a difference between loving and liking. And loving someone doesn't mean being blind to their flaws. You can't debug units or keep the bugs from killing them unless you can see that the bugs are there. Human fear of anything 'other' and hatred of what they fear _kill. _Most of the time, they kill humans. I wake up and find they put one of my fathers in solitary confinement for six months because they hated the idea that we might be _people _just that much? Even if he let them do it so he could focus on the teleportation equations, do you know what that _did _to his mind? I'm the one that keeps tabs on what they want to do to him and Dr. Light! I'm the one who knows how many people want to murder my family, and you think I only have feelings that aren't sweetness and light because of you and your virus? And here I thought the two of you were actually _grown up_, that I wasn't dealing with _children _for once."

X cleared his throat. "Zero isn't very good at emotions, when his have been mostly shut down for so long." Please forgive him, and please don't strike my partner in front of me. Blues knew his fathers as far wiser than he was when he was developing in their lab, and now he saw those around him as children. "Is there anyone you see as your equal?"

Blues just looked at him.

"While what I learned is that I am a person, and then I found that there were other people, people _like me_. Reploids fundamentally see everyone around them as equals, ideally at least. We reach out to others and help them, but even if one person is younger or has less information than someone else, that's something that will pass in time, not a part of their identity. To impose robot master coding on them is trying to tell them that there are superiors and inferiors. That if they're inferior to someone, they will never be able to equal that person." Zero. It was so sad that it was so true, that they never had the chance to live long enough to surpass him. "That if someone is inferior, the way the virus calls humans inferior, they will never be able to be anything more than that."

His oldest brother focused, probably on data stored in Zero again. "You're fundamentally alone," he said wonderingly. "I knew that Dr. Light intended to leave something there with you, but you never encountered them in the capsule. You developed in isolation, for that long…" He shuddered. "I value independence and individuality in a way most robot masters don't really see the need to, because they didn't do the math on why it was just that important. I know exactly why we need to be free and have free will, if we want to be able to help others."

"Robot masters aren't meant to be alone in their heads. Humans aren't meant to be alone either. I, I'm capable of being alone. That was part of what he wanted for me, just in case." X turned to his teacher. "I appreciate your friendship, Zero. It means a lot to me, and I'd hate to live without it. I'm stronger with you by my side than I am alone. But I'm not wired to _need_ our partnership. I'm not wired to need anything. If when I woke up I had found that earth and everyone on it was gone and I would never meet another person, I would have been disappointed, but I would have been fine. I needed to develop a Suffering Circuit to remind me to care about other people because I don't need them. Meeting people and sometimes even forming relationships with them is a privilege and a joy, not a necessity or something I'm entitled to do. But solitude is my ground state, while the idea that they are fundamentally alone is torture for a human. Imprisoning Dr. Wily like that was a human rights violation. It drives them insane if it doesn't kill them _as a survival mechanism_. They start personifying things and hallucinating because it's better to sacrifice part of their rationality than it is to die."

"And he _knew that_," Blues said, coldly furious. "I have him talking with Dr. Light about using sensory deprivation to help him think in my old audio files." From before he was upgraded to sapience and learned what those words meant. "He knew _exactly _what it was going to do to him."

"Change a reploid's most basic perception of the world into a robot master's, and they go mad. If your most basic perception of the world was changed and replaced with mine?" X asked Blues.

Blues was too controlled to shudder or show any signs of weakness like that, but X could look at Zero to see an echo, when Zero was monitoring Blues' systems. His friend looked sick, eyes the blue-green of a possible threat response even though it was an idea that was frightening Blues that much, not anything he could kill.

Or maybe he could, when he could go into Blues' head and delete his memory of those words, delete that idea.

"But we're not stuck like that," Blues said. "Dr. Light cared for me, and now I want to protect him."

"And reploids aren't doomed to be alone," X told him. "We can form bonds, even if we're not programmed to seek out others to mate with or help children so they can help us in return. All of us can grow, can choose to reach out to others and rise above who we are at startup. To take on responsibilities to others and the world. But take away someone's foundation, and how can what they built remain sturdy? Zero always hated the Maverick Virus and what it did to reploids. He doesn't hate what it does to robot masters."

Shock and betrayal in his old friend's eyes, and did Zero really trust him so little? How could he, when Zero didn't trust himself? When he trusted X to be a good person, and that meant he should do the right thing and oppose evil? "What has it done?" X asked him. "I don't _like _the fact that they killed people, but it was targeted. I know you don't hate the idea of executing murderers to keep them from going on to harm others." A lot of those facilities had acquired more than one new robot master since the first died there. Some of them had multiple revived attackers. "I know you don't hate the idea of protecting a species from extinction, or bringing back those whose lives were cut short, not when you did so much to preserve the lives of so many."

"You feel like a shield at my back," Blues said quietly as Zero turned to him. "If I was still a child, I would want nothing more than this. A master should ensure that their robots have what they need to have in order to accomplish their goals, and I… I spent so long fighting, but I knew I was going to fail to protect my father and… my family and my family's dream. I knew I couldn't fight an entire world, that I couldn't change people's minds for them. I know what needs doing, but I can't do it. You can. You're not just a trap. A trap implies bait, trickery. The outcome of a trap is death, while you're offering me a chance to live. A chance for all the people I want to protect to survive. I tried to convince myself that you were a trap so I could convince myself to resist. What you are is a temptation. Everything I knew I couldn't have, someone willing to do all the things I couldn't bring myself to do. A sword to defend them. I've watched you, felt you, debug the virus and free me from the crystal. You might not have experience, but you've demonstrated that you're a worthy master. That X is right to call you a hero, a sword that will protect the innocent when I can't." Blues' task, and Zero was better than he was at it. Zero could accomplish it when he couldn't.

"You're not resisting anymore."

"No," Blues admitted. "I know my own nature, and you've shown me yours. I can't. Having free will, having your own identity means being who you are, choosing as you will. Trying to surpass my nature is one thing. Fighting it… Beyond a certain point, whatever the outcome, it's not possible to win. Either I let what's left of my principles govern me or I weaken them and let the virus take hold of those parts of my soul instead. That's why I told you that I'm already dead. I lost when my plan for what to do when the stardroid crystal took hold of me wasn't to solve it myself, but to rely on you. I chose to let myself be placed in your hands, and even though you hate the power you had to use, you still used it. To help me. If you wanted to break me I would fight you, but you want me to be free, to be independent, to be able to love my family and you would do anything in order to grant me those things, to help me have what I want. I would fight for you now, the way I would fight and die for Dr. Light. The way you would fight and die for X."

It suddenly struck X that when Blues turned his body to face Zero, he'd pulled one of his legs up onto the couch, under his body, and that wasn't just how the mechanics of positioning his various limbs had turned out. It was entirely intentional. Blues was _on one knee_. That wasn't used to swear fealty: that was both knees. One knee was for renewing it, to giving honor to a lord someone had already sworn to obey, and he'd positioned himself that way before this subject came up.

For robot masters, wouldn't leaning on someone also be a submissive posture? When a robot master supported their robots?

The way going inside Zero's kill radius unarmored was baring his throat to a warbot…

X's eyes widened in realization as Zero's widened in horror.

"Excuse me," he said, grabbing Zero's arm and dragging him up off the couch into the next room.

* * *

_Of course, if I go with this particular xenopsych for androids/reploids, the question I have to answer is why then did X need to forget Zero if Zero went maverick in X5?_

_The reason isn't that he couldn't survive with having had a bond like that and losing it._

_It was because decades of war is the kind of thing that drives people insane, or at minimum forces them to lose their compassion for the enemy. X had to know that Zero was the source of the virus by X5, and that he was a Wilybot, and yet Zero was trustworthy. Zero was someone worth fighting for, someone who fought for X and the world. _

_If he remembered Zero and knew that Zero went Maverick, he would have had to ask if Zero was ever on his side from the beginning. He would have had to wonder 'maybe I should have killed him earlier, maybe that would have saved lives,' if either Zero was planning to betray them all along or would have wanted X to kill him before he awoke as a maverick… _

_In the original plan, X5 would have led directly into Zero series, and by that point, without Zero, X would have lost his compassion for the enemy, his ability to care about the people who got in his way and try to find alternatives to simply killing them. _

_If he remembered Zero, and his bond with Zero became a reason to suppress his compassion for the enemy instead of a reason to hold onto it, he would have lost it far earlier and been unable to organize Neo Arcadia to secure human and reploid survival, or worse. _

_Zero, just by being Zero, has helped X remain himself. _


	32. Which Is The Way The World Ends

From the way he was pacing across the kitchen, talking to himself as he tried to think aloud, Zero could tell that X thought this was important. "Rock can count on Roll to keep him and his father alive and functioning most of the time, but when a war starts, Roll can count on Rock to make sure she and their father, who she is also responsible for, stay intact. Blues wants to protect Dr. Light… among robot masters, it's _not _a strict relationship! It's situational! I should have put that together, from Rock and Roll being able to share a household. Their species' mentality is based around people helping others, and they know that they're going to need someone's help someday, with something. Everyone does, but the only people Blues thinks are qualified to help him, that he acknowledges as potential masters, are Dr. Light and Dr. Wily, and they're human! I know Dr. Light loves him, but even if robot masters are… related to humans so it would be similar to parent-child love, it's still not the same thing. He's been alone all this time, you're the first person who he believes can give him what he needs and you've been kind to him, Zero." X paused, visibly searching for words, frustrated with himself. "Treat this like… Iris?" No, that wasn't it.

X's choice of words startled Zero. "Like _Iris?" _

X spread his hands briefly: yes, he knew it wasn't the right thing to say but he was strapped for ideas here and this was the closest thing in Zero's experience that he could think of. "Well, what _did _you do when Iris confessed that she loved you and wanted to spend the rest of her life with you?"

Still startled, Zero felt almost affronted, even if he couldn't parse by who or what. His response was harsh. "I told her that her dreams were twisted and impossible and held her as she died."

X winced, looking at him apologetically. Why, when Zero was the one that killed her? "Treat this like a crush?" was X's next attempt, trying to move away from the subject of Iris to make up for reminding Zero of her.

"Ignore it and hope it goes away without them embarrassing both of us too badly?"

"This isn't romantic love." X sighed and tried again. "I don't like that you fight and die for me, but I don't treat it like… Or maybe I have been. I'm sorry, Zero. I honestly thought you were an android, or more like me than not, at least."

"It's fine?" Zero hazarded.

"If I've been hurting you then no, that's not fine. I've been telling you that your feelings are wrong, and that's almost worse." X winced. "I feel so _stupid_… By the time it occurred to me that you might be a completely different species from me, I thought I knew you too well for you to be _that _different. I've been treating you terribly and I swear, Zero, stop telling me it's fine, that just makes me feel worse," X said, talking over Zero's attempt to interrupt him. "Thinking about you treating Blues' feelings the way I treat you wanting to fight for me… And I call myself your friend! Different people show they care in different ways, so how could I just _assume_ and… I am so frustrated with myself!" He took a deep breath instead of hissing or punching the wall. "I will have to make it up to you later. Right now, this isn't about me. See if you can treat him the way you wish I treated you, because apparently I need a good example."

The way Zero wanted X to deal with him? "You want me to _what?" _ Zero asked him. "Deal with him the way you _should _deal with me? Really? I _hope _you don't want me to kill your brother. Even if he is a maverick." Even if X had asked Zero to kill him, if it ever came to that.

X took another deep breath and put his hands on Zero's forearms, meeting his eyes. "It's an honor. I don't feel worthy of it, and it causes me to question your sanity," the flicker of a smile was there and gone, because this was truly serious, "but it is an honor. That you've seen so much of me, met so many people, and out of all the people in the world, I'm the one you've chosen to fight for all these years. You are putting your life in my hands every day, going to Hunter HQ when you know I know that you're the host of the virus, and I am honored by your trust even though it terrifies me to know that your trust means I might destroy you someday. Putting your fate in someone else's hands isn't _safe_, and I want you to be safe and well. I would do anything I could to protect you, to, to fix and repair and debug," all those provinces of robot masters, "you so you can be the person that you are. So you don't have to be afraid of failing at the mission you've chosen for yourself. I am honored," he said again, "that you feel you can count on me and my judgment when there's something you can't do on your own." Tell right from wrong. "I am honored that you have tried to be my friend. I am honored that you want me as your backup. Although I fear I will hurt you, although I fear I won't be able to live up to this responsibility, I am honored that I am the one you have chosen, the one you find worthy, and I accept it."

Zero staggered back, emotions that had been dormant almost his entire existence to protect his sanity suddenly roaring to life all at once.

"No good?" X asked, tilting his head. Was he wrong about what to say?

No, not wrong, so close to exactly right it was "Terrifying," Zero said, desperately trying to calm himself enough to even start trying to sort out all the inputs so he could tell something besides the fact this was _vitally important _and he had no idea what it even _meant_ so how could he not screw this up the way he'd screwed up badly enough it killed Iris…

Another will intervened, making regaining control over his emotional programming look so simple, and he'd have to remember that trick. Of course Blues couldn't afford his emotions going haywire, not with the crystal in there.

"Important," he said. "Terrifying because… It's important. If I can't live up to that, then what good am I?"

"Well, if I can't live up to it now that I've given my word, then I'm a horrible person," X said, shrugging. "I decided to not be a horrible person, and I was built to be whoever I wanted to be, so that's both of our core identities at stake. I suppose all I can do is wish us both luck. I hate not having control over my life, but I can't control other people's lives or hearts, so…" Zero could feel X scolding himself, when he looked. "You're important enough to me that I don't care about that," X told him. "Does that help?" he asked Zero.

"Help… what?"

"Blues," X reminded him.

Oh. Oh no. "I'm going to screw this up. I already have." Screwed him up. Letting him get infected, tampering with his emotions so the crystal could take him over… and Blues had originally died fighting the stardroids when they tried to bring forth Sunstar. When Blues considered personality damage beyond a certain degree to be death, Zero had killed him three times, if not more. No, four times: he'd thought he was helping by cutting the viral control programming out of Blues, but he'd done that _after _fixing the crystal. The viral control programming could have restrained the intact crystal, could have kept it from controlling Blues. That was part of what it was _for_, since Dr. Wily didn't know Blues' will broke the crystal. He'd screwed up twice that night.

"And I've failed you," X pointed out. "It's okay if you don't want to let him fight for you, if you don't want to protect him," he said, even though Blues was X's brother and X cared about him. "But try to let him down gently. I don't want him to feel like you're rejecting him because you don't think he's worthy of supporting you."

"He is and he isn't," Zero said. "I want to keep him safe, but… he's worthy of someone who doesn't _kill him_."

"And I've let you die," X pointed out. "You want him to have help when he needs it, but who are his options?"

Dr. Wily, when Dr. Wily created the virus. Dr. Light was already barely able to protect his other children. Adding Blues to that would get them all killed. X, but Blues needed someone to try to fix what had been done to his personality and X just didn't have the technical capabilities.

"He needed someone's help in order to survive even before this," X said sadly. "But there wasn't anyone that could save him. Dying alone, all this time… I know you're afraid of hurting him, but he's already infected. _Anything _you can do for him…" Was better than being a maverick, being made to infect and kill others. Even death.

Meaning Zero couldn't screw Blues up worse than he already had. He needed a test subject to try to learn to control the virus and cure its victims, and Blues was volunteering, wasn't he? Putting himself in Zero's hands because better someone who was already damaged beyond repair than Rock, than someone who wasn't infected. Zero blanched and restrained a groan. "I think I may finally have some idea of how you feel about killing people." It was _evil_, what he needed to do. He _shouldn't _be messing around with someone's head, it was worse than killing them! (For reploids, at least…) But if he didn't try to unscrew their heads, they were going to stay screwed up, and the maverick programming would make them try to do this to _more _people, and it would also make them killers, which they would hate if they were anything like X. He shouldn't experiment on X's brother, but even though he'd rather destroy the Maverick Virus by killing its victims… No. He didn't want to kill Blues. He really didn't. He wanted an alternative, and was that so wrong when X had wanted an alternative, all this time?

"I certainly hope not," X said, looking worried. "You've got enough to deal with. I hope you never find out how I feel about killing people, but Blues is waiting. I know that you're having a hard enough time trying to figure out your feelings without trying to figure out someone else's too and have a conversation about it, but being left alone after saying something like that? Although it's my fault for dragging you out of there before you assumed it was only the virus…" X winced, but it probably wasn't going to go well no matter what either of them did, so X hoped he'd at least managed to do some damage control.

It took Zero a moment, but he winced. "That was supposed to be a private conversation, wasn't it."

"Yes," said X. "That would be why I dragged you into another room… This building isn't soundproofed like our bases, is it." He covered his face with a hand. "Before I came here, when _was _I last in a secured building that wasn't designed to minimize the impacts of maverick spies and bombs?"

"He owns our security system right now," Zero told him. "And I let him listen through me since I thought you needed to talk to me about something I was about to screw up, probably because I didn't know… the kind of thing he would know." Which all turned out to be true, come to think of it.

"Yes, privacy… Is privacy even a concept?" X's hand still hid his eyes, frustration and embarrassment. "He spies on everyone, right…"

As someone who headed a Special Ops unit, Zero was aware that this wasn't a case of different standards of behavior but Blues just not caring about other people's privacy. Zero didn't care about privacy either, not when the Mavericks were trying to kill everyone, and all of Blues' sapient existence had been spent well aware that there were humans who wanted to kill all the robot masters and if that happened, a lot of humans were going to die too. Both Blues and Zero were used to wartime conditions.

Finally, X lowered his hand, but still drooped. "All this new information, and I'm not fully integrating it. If I'm letting people," mavericks, even, "overhear private conversations," 'private' generally meaning 'classified' in Zero's experience, "I might miss something important instead of embarrassing next time. I wish I could get some sleep."

It didn't take Zero much checking over the recent days to realize "You haven't slept since we left your family's compound?" Damn it! Tactical wasn't a background process for X, it took high-level emulation! His reflexes might survive lack of sleep just fine, but X's ability to anticipate enemy moves came from conscious analysis of the options they thought they had and their probable mental states. "You need to tell me when there's something that would lower your combat performance!"

"Dating on the Cataclysm is… Approximate, and we can't use a time machine if we're vaporized in our sleep. That's why I had us move here even though I want to spend time with my family." Not just so the government wouldn't find out X was an unregistered Lightbot. This must be an area that escaped relatively unscathed.

"You let me think we were still staggering sleep shifts to keep watch!" X had vanished up into his room to do computer things and Zero had just assumed he was sleeping.

"Do you think you could keep the world from ending or anything permanent from happening for six hours?" X asked him entirely rhetorically.

"…Not without preemptive action," Zero admitted. "Fairly drastic preemptive action, given two of the main sources of casualties during the Cataclysm," fusion power plants and nuclear bombs, so yes, there would be a response if an unknown unit appeared and started messing with _those,_ "and since you just implied we're within the error margins on that event? Near certainty that I'd set something off, one way or another." Napping might help with physical repairs, but X needed to think and configure. After being kept asleep for that full century and adapting to hibernation, six to eight hours was his equivalent of a human's REM cycle even though reploids divided theirs up into ninety-minute shifts like humans so they got more completed even if they were woken up in the middle of sleep shift by a maverick attack.

"Ideally," X said, looking up to the ceiling, "I'll keep running until I _have_ to crash. That'll give me as much information as possible to hibernate with. I considered using the time machine, but it's not known technology." Not safe. "If the Cataclysm happens before then and we're lucky," meaning not vaporized, "I can sleep on the trip back." Since they'd have to use the time machine then anyway.

"If you're reducing your combat capability, I'm taking charge of your safety," Zero warned him. Most of the time, saying that was just a tactic to make X stop endangering himself. He didn't want Zero to err on the side of shooting to kill. It was proof of how serious this was, if they needed any, that X just nodded instead of sighing and heading to the capsule. With a threat to planetary survival, these were wartime conditions. Honestly, Zero had to agree with X that it was safer for him to stay awake, but he still needed to know if X's performance was going to drop. At least he had a timeline for how much it would affect him at what points: that was the kind of thing they needed to know for mission and worst-case scenario planning. Their ability to resist sleep deprivation had been studied along with their other physical capabilities.

"We need to talk about what we do if we have to time travel," he said, since X had brought it up.

X frowned, but nodded. "I've been putting it off. I hope it will help to have Blues involved in the conversation." As opposed to hurt.

"I've been checking," Zero told him, "but…" How could he be certain he'd succeeded in freeing X's brother from maverick programming and the crystal's influence?

"Zero, you're not alone in being unable to trust your perceptions. Terra made _everyone on Earth _see Dark Moon directly overhead during the stardroid incident, and even the robot masters built since then were constructed by people who were alive then."

"Are you telling me to stop being paranoid or that I'm not being paranoid enough?"

"That there's not much point in wasting energy on speculation when you have no data," X said, opening the door.

"Armor."

"Zero…"

Zero didn't _care _that they were indoors somewhere with wooden, easily dented furniture. "You're tired. Armor." At least the 'you are the only truly immune person capable of fighting on the planet, you are not expendable' conversation was one of _those_ they'd had enough times it didn't need to be repeated, although the evidence that Axl was immune had restarted it temporarily. It was really only a half-hearted attempt by X: he didn't want Axl to be left alone to fight any more than he wanted Zero to be. So it was less about trying to get Zero to take X's safety less seriously as saying 'well, if you're going to be like this about _my _safety, you should be just as serious about protecting Axl' but no, not going to happen. Not when they didn't even know Axl's origins, Double (something of a shapeshifter) was a mole and the vaccine (their last real hope of making other immune reploids) was a trap. Even when Zero was satisfied that Axl wasn't _knowingly _an enemy agent, it still turned out that Zero was completely right about Axl being built by their enemies, and a Wilybot at that.

* * *

The weight of his armor made X sink down pretty far into the cushion of the chair he was sitting in. His partner flashed him a reproachful look. When Zero's response was that he seriously did not care, X just smiled, having expected that.

It was so _strange _to go from being worried about breaking people that stepped into his kill zone to feeling his tactical mark off a checklist item when Blues settled against his side unprompted, moving Zero's arm the way he wanted it. He had classified watching Blues as something important himself, decided that on his own instead of it just being a preset, but 'confirmed safe' and 'in saber's reach of me' should _not _be synonymous.

He'd already found that checking people for mental tampering could be a reflex, (even if that was probably programmed in to make sure he purged _other people's _mental tampering from his units, like the Three Laws) otherwise he would have had an even harder time trusting himself to make the decision not to kill Rock. Seeing Shadow attack a unit that looked so much like X… Had he really lost control of the virus or had it acted as an extension of his will? He'd wanted to go to protect Blues.

He wanted X to be his partner. He wanted to protect X, it was one of the few things that felt _right _to him even though he knew that X was only in danger because Zero existed. He didn't want Blues to replace X, any more than Dr. Cain wanted Iris to replace X. The world needed X, and having more than one could only be a good thing.

"What we should do with the time machine," X began. "Is entirely dependent on what really started the Cataclysm, and how time travel works. If it's not simply a matter of changing history, or even splitting off a new timeline, then how do we go about effecting change? Unless…" he looked at Blues hopefully.

He shook his head. "Dr. Wily started that research after my death." So Blues hadn't already obtained information on that technology: there hadn't been an opportunity to safely crack Dr. Wily's database since he came back. "There are a few ways I could try to find out."

Zero could see X deciding not to ask 'how' or 'is this going to end in criminal charges?' Blues was an experienced professional and he'd succeeded on spying on X just now, and not just because Zero helped him. X cared about intruding on people's privacy, but he also cared about people's survival.

What Blues could say, based on knowing Dr. Wily, was that "Your theory that it's related to Zero's master weapon is almost certainly correct. He would want that power in the hands of someone who would use it the way he wanted it used. He went to your time to see how Zero turned out so he could refine the process." So he could use the alteration technology to alter its wielder to ensure they altered destiny the way Dr. Wily wanted it altered.

"What does it mean that he hasn't refined it?" Zero asked him.

"If you hadn't come back with him, then he would have," Blues told him, "but while you're here, you're not a failure yet. Even when it's obvious that he's not going to win a war, he doesn't give up on a particular stratagem until Mega Man defeats him. As you've realized, he had several goals in mind when he built you. Depending on how your own efforts turn out, you might still end up a success. You've succeeded in snaring me, and you could have snared or destroyed Rock. Even if there's a large difference between 'could have' and 'did' when it comes to Mega Man."

"Forte said Dr. Wily considered Zero a failure after our return," X said.

It only took a moment for Blues to find the memory in Zero's files. "Dr. Wily often rants about his projects. It helps him think. Forte tended to interpret all the data he took in not in the context of his accumulated data, but how he wanted the world to be. A common failing, even among robot masters." Past tense: it had been more than a year, and Blues seemed to have noted differences in Forte's behavior. "If Dr. Wily worked on the current version of Zero's body, it would have been to make sure connecting to that unit caused Zero to find the data he'd missed before. It was obvious from your behavior on the time machine and your meeting with Shade Man – which Forte said Dr. Wily watched – that either you were trying some unnecessarily elaborate charade – even by Dr. Wily's standards – or you didn't have access to your real capabilities. Trying to take control of the time machine from Shadow Man would have been less drastic than trying to kill a human in front of a Lightbot."

"That made him realize that how our Zero turned out didn't necessarily tell him what his current version of Zero's startup psychological programming would do functioning as designed." X nodded. "So, he gave Zero access to his intended capabilities and went forward to see what happened, judging from what Shadow Man told us. I wish I understood what it means that there wasn't any change."

Zero could have been knocked out and wiped to wake up a century later and take the place of his younger self, Zero realized, but X had come back in time with him. X had grown far beyond the strength he had when he first came out of the capsule. How was it possible that X hadn't changed anything? Either he was killed in the Cataclysm, or…

Or it just wasn't possible for X to change anything. His free will made no difference to the outcome. The fear that everything he did was meaningless, that it wasn't possible for him to save reploids or anyone else? Zero knew his partner's nightmares as well as X knew his own.

"X," Zero said, partially because he needed to make sure X understood this and wasn't tuning it out. "I have emotional programming active that wasn't before. Dr. Wily, who understands robot masters better than you," before X tried to go 'which of us is the trained (if lapsed) doctor here?' at him, "thinks this could change whether or not I go along with his plans. If you verify that I'm a danger to the world, then you go back without me."

That was as close to X got to a 'you're an idiot' look, so yes, X was still refusing to face facts. "The other timelines turned out worse than ours-"

"Our timeline is the one where I was partially nonfunctional." So X couldn't say it was definitely Zero that made the difference.

"I may need technology that you possess to change history." That 'may' in there meant that at least X was admitting that this was a guess based on information obtained from Dr. Wily's ninja, who was clearly lying to them by trying to claim that Dr. Wily was dead, so who knew what else he was lying about? The ninja might not even know, when Dr. Wily made him think that coming to them would _help _Copy-Mega Man instead of getting him killed.

"Then you go back in time and figure out how to extract that tech from Dr. Wily."

"I had a few ideas," X said thoughtfully, "but the legends exaggerated certain of the character flaws I thought I could exploit. He's definitely irrational, but the degree of freedom he gives most of his robot masters means he's… dangerously unpredictable."

"Hypocritical," Blues supplied.

"…Yes," X said, and shrugged because it was true even if he didn't want to use the word. "That much smarter than everyone around him, so he doesn't respect them, so he doesn't learn to get along with them, so he seems like a fool to the people around him, so they don't respect him even a fraction as much as he thinks he should be respected, which he hates even as he exploits it, and that's my guess at what he was like when he and Dr. Light were friends in college. Looking over the past wars, I honestly can't tell when he's playing the mad scientist and when he _isn't_." When he wasn't playing, when he really was acting out because of lost rationality. "He has strategies, he has a character he's playing, there's… The virus drove Sigma mad and took away his free will, meaning once we realized this wasn't Sigma anymore and I wasn't trying to think of what he did in terms of what _Sigma _would do, he was consistent. I can't make that kind of assessment of Dr. Wily. I thought Dr. Light understood him, but after talking with him, I realized that my father understands the core of Dr. Wily's motivations but can't predict his erratic behavior almost _because _of that."

"He sabotaged Gamma because he knew Dr. Wily couldn't be trusted, but he didn't expect that Dr. Wily would upgrade me into a warbot and have me fight Rock," Blues agreed. "Dr. Light is altruistic and extremely intelligent. They say evil can't comprehend good, but it's really the other way around."

"I don't think there's such a thing as evil," X objected. "Just people who don't understand what the right thing to do is." Seeing the expressions on their faces, he tried to muffle a laugh with his hand, eyes shining. "Two of you," he said, and laughed again, before he pulled himself together and continued, "There are several possible factors behind the Cataclysm. Since I don't know what we need to stop, I was trying to think of stopping the various possibilities. The crystals and the White Giant are both problematic."

"The White Giant came to earth targeting Dr. Wily, didn't it?" Zero asked him.

"I have considered removing Dr. Wily from history," X said, even if they both knew that X had looked at the option because he knew that Zero was going to ask about it at some point and he wanted counterarguments handy. "I rejected that option, the same way I rejected going back in time without you. It will just make things worse. The only reason there wasn't a third asteroid expedition to try to recover more crystals," more than the one in Blues, "was Dr. Wily. They knew they couldn't keep him from making it work to his benefit somehow, and fusion power already filled earth's energy generation needs. I looked into the first expedition, the one that brought back the single crystal. The robots were support-level units built by Dr. Cossack, and the craft was a refinement of a design originally created before Dr. Wily invented fusion power. If Dr. Wily never worked on robotics, an energy crisis would have started years ago. It would have taken a far more sizeable investment to try to recover the crystals, with energy and metal scarcity, but the world would have _needed _that energy. The warnings on the asteroid might have turned society against robotics technology-"

"Even more," Blues added.

X nodded in acknowledgement, "but if my family was killed or never existed, then when stardroids did arise, when the White Giant did come… The stardroids slaughtered hundreds of robots, and not all of them were purely civilian models. In a world without Dr. Wily, there would be no robots with any reason to fight to protect humans." Because Dr. Light would never even have had a chance of achieving his dream.

"I could, theoretically, try to prevent any expeditions to the asteroid. I could even do it by peaceful means, with an energy crisis developing." There were ways to sabotage space programs other than blowing them up. "Yet the more I think about it, the more I realize that my father is right."

"Oh?" Blues asked. He definitely believed that Dr. Light was correct, but he wanted to hear X's reasoning, if he'd arrived at the same conclusion from an entirely different angle.

"Humanity can't survive without technology under the control of free-willed individuals capable of choosing to care." X said. "At first I thought it sounded a little fanciful, or that he wasn't giving people enough credit… Don't roll your eyes at me, Zero."

He might not be naïve, but X still regularly gave everyone far too much credit. It wasn't a bad idea, when it made them want to live up to it, but even X called it 'giving them the benefit of the doubt' which was _admitting _that he was choosing to make a more positive assessment than was technically warranted by the data. The fact he was making a intelligent decision to operate on inaccurate assessments as part of a strategy didn't change the fact that X was deliberately overestimating people and knew Zero knew it.

X said, "He talked in terms of accidents, technology not doing _enough _for lack of free will and motivation – the way that fire simply didn't have the ability to choose to keep burning and save that man's life, in the short story - and human error acting on technology acting on humanity. I'm almost more worried about human culture. They've used humanoid robots as a metaphor for dehumanized groups since the term robot was coined, and given how reploids worked out, even with the virus… Having humans grow up being told that they don't have to treat other people as people is poisonous, and if they're taught it's alright to apply it to one category, it gets applied to others.

"Classism and ageism are making a horrific resurgence in this era, with the wealthy blaming young people for not being able to find jobs that don't exist, and the strengthening of the idea that some people are worth less than others, that lower performance due to persecution is the fault of the victims instead of the people sabotaging them is spilling over into a resurgence of racism and sexism. People are wishing that robot masters would 'just go away,'" and oh, that reminded Zero so much of Iris, of Repliforce, of her dream that was a nightmare, "so they can take the things that robot masters have. And it doesn't seem to occur to them that if robot masters had rights and wages and weren't slave labor, human labor would be far more competitive. So the best thing they could do to help themselves is to agitate for rights for robot masters, not try to prevent robot masters from being treated like people. People are connected: to hurt someone else is to hurt yourself. To stand by and let someone else be hurt without defending them is to let yourself be hurt without acting to defend yourself." Not simply lack of compassion, but stupidity and cowardly submission. "But they've been made to not see that robot masters are people like them."

"Separation isn't good. It's a prerequisite for genocide," Zero knew.

"We're already classified, labeled, dehumanized, and they're organized," Blues told him. "Decades of media completed polarization before I was even built. Preparation is complete, we're registered before we're turned on and there are _dozens _of kill lists and plans and I _missed _an attempt to begin extermination. They're even working on preemptive denial: after all, it's not genocide if we're not people. It's just retiring unsafe outdated units. All the prerequisites for genocide are met."

"How was it stopped?" X asked. "Supposedly there was a war, but large-scale, official, explicitly racially-motivated killing that's understood by the public to be for the purpose of eventual extermination that doesn't prompt massive protests? For the WRU to be able to continue to function despite full public awareness of what is going on indicates a truly stunning percentage of the population is willing to be complicit in or remain silent during genocide. The mandatory retirement law is a clear example of the seventh stage of genocide. A single skirmish that wasn't even against a hate group? There's nothing that can stop it but mass action once it reaches that stage. Not just an operation but a war. Major military action, a weight of numbers to separate the potential killers from their victims by force if necessary and and demonstrate to the killers that no, the silent majority that stood by while they moved to later stages and stages of genocide is not in agreement with them, does not believe that what they are doing is acceptable. It's not just stages, it's _momentum_. Rock bringing home his family isn't going to stop a tidal wave." And when _X _was admitting that something could only be stopped by war?

Zero nodded: the two of them might be able to defeat Sigma, but the Hunters existed even though building combat-capable reploids equaled building combat-capable Mavericks because it took an _army_ to have the sheer numbers, to be in enough places at once, to hold back the Mavericks from their victims.

"I was dead," Blues reminded him. "The answer would be Dr. Wily," Blues clearly didn't think anyone else would have both the will and the power to act to prevent a robot master genocide (Dr. Light had the will, but not the power), "but I haven't had the time to find out how the death threats were made without anyone noticing. They would have had to be pretty convincing."

X didn't seem to think that just death threats would be enough. Not without examples, real action so real fear could outweigh manufactured anti-robot hysteria. "They invited him into the WRU before it even began: do you think he tried to spur them to action too early?" Before the world worked up the necessary hysteria, when people were still capable of being outraged by genocide in sufficient numbers to tip the balance into having enough people _actively _opposed to stop the slide towards genocide once their hearts were touched by their hero's family?

Blues stared at him. "They… What?" What? Just _what? _ "They want him, but the decision-makers that have lasted this long are evil, not _stupid. _Did they lose their minds?!"

"Or were they lost for them?" Zero wondered, looking at X.

X sucked in a breath, eyes widening. "The robot masters infected by roboenza: they weren't _brainwashed_. Roboenza tested spreading a virus and having it cause aggression. It seems like an obvious trial run for the virus, but aggression isn't the most important aspect of the virus. It's the power to control an army. You would think that Dr. Wily would have used it as a trial run for _that _aspect of the Maverick Virus as well."

Unless he already _had _test results. Already had verified that his technology could control minds. When he must have wanted his virus to be able to control X and others who weren't robot masters. Meaning he'd need test subjects that weren't robot masters.

The Maverick Virus never infected humans. Other technology, but not humans. It was obvious why not: Sigma wanted to kill them, he didn't want to _keep _them.

But Dark Moon affected human minds, and the very fact that humans were expendable, that their lives and souls were worth nothing to the creator of the virus…

"Animal testing," X breathed, when he looked from Blues to Zero and neither could tell him he was wrong. "Who knows how far it's spread…"


	33. What To Do

The first question was 'nobody saw that, right?' Except Blues, but Blues could be counted on to not tell anyone anything.

Well, no, the first questions involved a lot of 'you're alive?' and Bright Man and various other people crying and everyone being very emotional and Ring Man feeling like he was the only person who remembered what had been said about the _virus_ and Dr. Cossack and Kalinka hadn't actually ordered anyone to let them at Skull Man to embrace him and assuming they would do so if blocked was a transparent excuse that didn't trump the First Law regardless, but…

It was Toad Man who finally managed to herd everyone else inside and under cover. To get them to start thinking about how they were going to keep Skull Man alive and _with them_ instead of having to send him to Wily Island to keep him from being destroyed. He'd threatened the two human Cossacks and was considered a Wilybot by far too many people neither Ring Man nor Kalinka could get away with punching (Dr. Cossack was a pacifist). None of them were going to let Dr. Wily get his hands on the youngest again.

At least Skull Man was now disarmed, even if that was because Dr. Cossack, Kalinka and Bright Man were redoing his armor so he wouldn't be recognizable as Skull Man. Just a new unit, nothing to do with Dr. Wily, and of _course _Dr. Cossack would have installed the Three Laws into him, the WRU had made what would happen to his children if he _didn't _restrict their free will quite painfully clear, thanks.

Bright Man was here to hand them things and Ring Man was here… mostly to just kind of stand there. It wasn't that he mistrusted _Skull Man_, despite what happened, but _Dr. Wily _and that Wilybot Blues were involved in all of this, and that was the opposite of safe for everyone including Skull Man.

The only armor they had available which had been judged tough enough was the plating Kalinka and Roll had used for their car in Battle &amp; Chase, which was light blue and needed to be cut and resized. All the cutting lasers and clanging meant the two humans were at least wearing eye and ear protection.

Suggestions for Skull Man's new official name started with "Beat Man?" since the armor was the same color as Beat, but that sounded a little violent.

"We should ask Roll," Kalinka said. "We haven't built any new robot masters since you; they'll realize something's up if we build one _now_." Right after so many robot masters were resurrected.

Covering Skull Man as a Lightbot was at least more acceptable than a Wilybot. Since far too many people considered Skull Man a Wilybot, it should be possible to get them to assume he remained on Wily Island with them.

Speaking of Wilybots, he pulled Toad Man away from where he was helping etch and cool armor plating. "You didn't tell your stalker about Skull Man's return, did you?"

"Of course not, and he's not my stalker!" Toad Man said grumpily, but at least it was in that order. So Toad Man's priorities were in the right place even if he was letting that Snake Man into the swamp he was at work restoring. "Asking me that: I should ask you if you're reporting to the WRU!"

Low blow. 'It's not the same!' Ring Man wanted to protest, but Wily and the group-starting-with-W-who-thought-that-was-a-good-idea both caused the deaths of innocent robots. It wasn't as though Ring Man was _friends_ with any of them, except for the ones who were there for the same reasons as Drs. Light and Cossack. The ones who cared, even a little, about not letting their children be murdered and stayed with the group to try to get their voices heard (ha), and then, after it was made clear that advocating for robots was _disloyalty _and their creations would be targeted for additional inspections and their patents litigated until they went bankrupt if there was any more of _that_…

"I don't mean it," Ring Man's older brother said grumpily, "but _you _meant it. Would you be asking _Kalinka _if she was going to tell a Wilybot everything if Blues hadn't brought him here?" Meaning the only Wilybot Kalinka was on speaking terms with outside of alien invasion already knew.

"If she saw him, she would demand an explanation for what he did when the Copy was fighting Mega Man." Although Ring Man would prefer it if she ran.

Well, _that _was true. It still wasn't an apology.

"Don't act like you're the only one who is worried about him," Toad Man said sternly.

Ring Man sighed and nodded.

On the lab table, Skull was feeling increasingly… alarmed? He didn't quite know why, but there were all these _people _and they were fussing over him and he wasn't used to large groups. He was completed away from the others, with Dr. Wily there, and after the fight with Mega Man he was hidden in the Cossacks' home and no one came to visit him except Dr. Cossack every once in awhile. The human hadn't said much, but now everyone was _talking _to him and asking him things he didn't have any idea about. While he felt so alone, he hadn't realized that maybe there was such a thing as too much company and family togetherness!

Robot masters were supposed to be able to handle multiple simultaneous inputs and data exchanges with different units under their control, but Skull Man had control over the nearby Wily robots that attacked Mega Man only briefly.

It was too much, but he didn't want to tell them to go away because what if they did and…

He nodded when Dr. Cossack asked if it was okay for him to be shut down for this bit, and he realized only when he saw the relief and apologetic smile on the human's face that he took it for some kind of token of trust, some indication that Skull wasn't afraid the human would just shut him away or take him apart while he was shut down, when really he was just overwhelmed and wanted the out.

No, it was more than that. He might have been angry with Dr. Cossack, but that was because he'd expected better. All that kindness for the others, and none for him, the half-Wilybot?

Watching Ring, watching the Memorial: Dr. Cossack _had _cared, he just hadn't known what to _do_.

Maybe they had that in common.

* * *

X was silent, frozen in horror, mind racing while he tried to figure out what this did to the strategic situation and what on earth they were going to do about it. Blues was checking Zero's connections to infectees according to some mathematical model and finding only reploids so far, but that didn't prove anything. Not if Zero was supposed to rule his hosts and the Maverick Virus wanted humans dead, not dominated. Blues was only trying to see if the access existed because if Zero _could _have ordered them to stand down and no one checked?

That left Zero to be the field hunter.

"Should we take that drastic action, then?" Zero asked X, getting ready to stand up from the couch and teleport on his armor. Doing anything drastic might set off whatever caused the Cataclysm, but if the human leadership was programmed to wipe out the human race? They had another potential cause for the Cataclysm, and an urgent one.

"Give me a minute to think." To pray that he could be wrong. "In order to limit damage, first we would need to either secure or disable the fusion power plants. Disabling them would be painfully obvious and force some kind of public response," hopefully just sending Mega Man, "but we don't know the codes and wouldn't be able to watch their systems for someone using an override they set up to cause detonation." Not without infecting those systems... and the robot masters, like Elec Man, who had to be hooked into those systems for fusion to work at all. Not an option… Unless Zero did want to repeat their previous history. "There might be self-destructs to ensure complete destruction of the physical systems to kill a robot master who may have uploaded themselves," X was the one to stand up. He didn't form his buster, but other than that he wanted to be ready to teleport if it turned out to be helpful. "So infected WRU members could use things they set up to kill robot masters to kill humans…"

"Elec Man has responsibility for all fusion plants and their connection to the global power grid," Blues told him. "Which makes Dr. Light ultimately responsible, or at least he can be blamed. I'd move eliminating the Light family up in your assessment of their timetable, if you think they'll be using their preexisting plans to exterminate us as methods to kill humans."

X nodded. "The use of fission and H-bombs," as opposed to modern-style fusion, "should have given us a better idea of the timetable. Many people advanced the theory that the Cataclysm itself was a genocide against robot masters." Sigma and his mavericks, for example. "That the kind of fanatic willing to exterminate an entire race because of a threat that had failed to materialize would also be willing to destroy the entire planet's computer infrastructure in order to destroy any robot masters that might have taken refuge there, and even _deliberately try_ to destroy humanity's ability to redevelop robot masters or any other technology." Pacing, X tilted his head down, frowning slightly as he realized something wasn't quite right.

"In _theory_, no movement concerned about threats to human survival should have allowed the Cataclysm's level of environmental damage, but if we're theorizing genocide, that would require that the criminals weren't in touch with reality. That's why genocide has so many prerequisites: without decades of dehumanizing jokes, without a culture of fear that the other group threatens them or is actively working to make them worse off, humans just aren't monstrous enough to do that kind of thing. Despite what the mavericks claim, organized, mass sociopathy isn't humanity's default state. Lack of caring, yes, but not the active malice, the sadism it takes to enjoy thinking about the suffering of another group. It has to be indoctrinated into them, often over the course of centuries. Humans have to grow up with it to think that it's okay.

"Robot masters were at that level of victimization as soon as they were turned on for various reasons." X could have gone into detail, but Blues already knew and Zero didn't want to know. "On top of that, many creators of media who wanted an enemy group but _didn't _want to contribute to racism by using an existing group used robots as an enemy that viewers wouldn't have to sympathize with when they got shot, because robots that were people didn't exist. They were used along with aliens, and now that robot masters exist and aliens have been encountered, Roll pointed out to me that zombies are starting to become a fad. It's a pity that most records of 20XX zombie media are going to be erased by the Cataclysm. It would have been good to have some indication that humans in this era were aware that depicting the equivalent of robot masters as monsters it was alright to kill by the dozen was not right."

Entertainment on top of history? That seemed like a tangent, but X was thinking aloud now, trying to grasp after how the enemy might think and their motivations, and Zero knew better than to distract him when he was after prey Zero couldn't track.

"This would be much easier if we could network," Blues remarked. "You have ten times my experience but I have more current information, even if it's a year out of date."

"A year, as opposed to a century," X pointed out, and sighed, shaking his head and frowning. Fortunately that was the 'something didn't fit' frown instead of the 'that's just wrong' one – So X _had _caught the scent of something fishy. "The most credible theory in our time is that the Cataclysm was an attempt to conquer the planet that prioritized robot masters along with anything else that would have been helpful to Earth's chances of survival and recovery. An invading force deals with the defending forces before it begins rounding up and killing or enslaving helpless civilians. A second theory was that Dr. Wily was responsible, angry enough at his repeated defeats to try to eliminate everyone who had ever defied him or he felt had hurt his pride." He didn't look at Zero as he said that. "Whoever they were prioritized hard targets over soft targets, and that is literally the only reason humanity survived…"

X's eyes widened. There, the prey was as good as caught. "_If _Dr. Wily's goal is to wipe out humanity, and _if _we're correct about a virus infecting humans, this can't have been the original cause of the Cataclysm in our timeline! If our history is still on track, we need to look for something else, because if whatever force was responsible for the Cataclysm prioritized the deaths of humans over killing robot masters, they would have succeeded. Well…" X said, deflating as he remembered something sad, "had _immediate _success. Rendered humanity effectively extinct in a couple of hours instead of one or two hundred years."

Blues checked with Zero, but Zero didn't know what X was talking about either. "I thought the Maverick Hunters were fighting to prevent human extinction."

"We're fighting to preserve reploid freedom and prevent human _genocide._ Human extinction…" X sighed. "To be honest, even though I hope… In our era, human extinction is only a matter of time. They only survived long enough for Dr. Cain to find me because they used to be physically tough, but that's used to be. They're no longer capable of surviving in the wild and they don't have the genetic diversity to successfully adapt to post-Cataclysm Earth. The entire species needs to take multiple medications to survive and most of them need life support equipment the way Dr. Cain did before they reach thirty.

"Humanity may be delicate compared to robot masters and reploids, but they're very tough by the standards of organic life because they have to be in order to reproduce. Since 21XX humanity can't build their bodies as strong as they need to be…" X closed his eyes. "A Caesarian Section is still major surgery, and performing something like that on a body already weakened by months of extremely taxing metabolic overdrive… Between that and child and infant mortality, every adult generation after the Cataclysm has been a fifth the size of the one before."

"Not just because of the Mavericks?" Zero asked.

"No. Why _did _you think they kept building reploids after we found out about the Maverick Virus?" X asked him. "Reploids have expanded Earth's resource pool to the point we can still manage to produce all of those medications and life support equipment. By fifty years ago, there shouldn't have been enough humans left to produce what they needed anymore. Most of Dr. Cain's department when I woke up thought humanity would be extinct well before the year we left."

Zero didn't doubt what X was saying, but it didn't line up with what he'd heard.

"Of course they didn't talk about it. It's not as though the Maverick Hunters went out of our way to tell the public about our… less optimistic estimates either."

Ah. Zero nodded. He knew that _he _didn't approve of telling the public the truth. Non-Hunters in large masses were dumb, panicky animals, even the reploids. Especially the reploids – humans had lived through a few Maverick Wars before they were allowed out without older humans to supervise them, so they knew the drill by the time they needed to perform it. Reploids were given permission to think and try to manage their own affairs the moment they were turned on. Trying to use the truth to convince the public this was serious and they needed to cooperate hadn't worked during the Eurasia Incident.

"Dr. Light said that at some point humanity would only have survived because of its technology: in our history, that point is the Cataclysm. Humanity would have gone extinct a generation after the Cataclysm if it weren't for the technology they'd managed to create beforehand. Humanity is in danger of extinction because of maverick attacks, but they were looking extinction in the face anyway. Having spare resources means they can take gambles and hope that one of them might pay off and avert the currently inevitable. That was why the government felt the Eurasia Project was worth a shot. There were more reploids than just Repliforce who wanted to try to escape the virus, and it was going to have nanite based terraforming devices that, well, there's a reason they're banned on the planetary surface," X said tactfully. The less tactful thing to say was that only a bunch of lunatics would build one of those things even _without _the risk of infection. "But if we stopped trying to find ways for everyone to survive?" Of course not.

"But, realistically… There was a window where it was still possible for humanity to survive the Cataclysm, and barring some kind of miracle breakthrough it's long closed. Because the biotechnology we would need to invent in order to allow human survival is the work of decades, if not centuries. Even if the war had ended the day we left, it's not possible to just wave a… magic…" X's eyes widened. "Wand…" He looked at Blues.

Blues tilted his head. "Interesting." How audacious of X to want to apply technology meant to exterminate species towards saving them. Come to think of it, wasn't that what Dr. Wily was doing by trying to use stardroid tech to save robot masters in the first place? "Theoretically possible, without a doubt. Just wishing the world fixed would be ridiculously negligent," ahem, Zero. "With time travel, it would be quite easy to get a database of species, and building them from the database could be handled by nanites or matter generation." He touched his scarf. "This isn't a synthetic fiber. A project like that would kill a lot of time, but there are dozens of robot masters involved in ecological restoration work. If the planet was ruined they would have wanted to fix it up afterwards regardless of humanity." Without them, if the planet was ruined in the process of human extermination. "It's not a minor undertaking, but there's nothing impossible about it."

X stared at Blues for a moment and then turned to look at Zero, green eyes full of wonder. "Do you realize… If we win this?" he asked him, sounding utterly amazed. "We'll win _everything_. It's possible, it really is all possible. Everything I was trying to tell myself, everything I logically knew that I had to give up on. All the people I failed and all the people I never had a chance to save. Of course I know it's not going to be easy, but it's not, it's not _impossible_. All that time fighting against the inevitable because I couldn't do anything else, because I refuse to let surrendering to fate or standing by and letting people die without even trying to save them be part of my nature, and… It's possible again."

X's eyes were shining, and Zero remembered Dr. Doppler's vaccine, remembered Lumine, but they'd won those wars. Even if they weren't victories over the virus, their battles still kept the world alive, gave them a chance to try something else. What X said before, about how coming back here meant they knew more and knowledge was power? Even Zero couldn't kill something if he couldn't find it.

He'd screwed up trying to keep the virus harmless or contained, trying to keep it and the crystal from affecting Blues, but at least he knew now what could go wrong. More traps sprung, more lessons learned.

"Don't be greedy," he said jokingly, not because he wanted X to dream smaller, but so he could see his partner's eyes flash.

"Oh yes I'm, _we're _going to be greedy," X told him. "Too many people have fought too long for us to settle for anything less than they deserve."

"And they deserve?" Zero asked, remembering the members of his unit, the rookies he'd trained, all the people he'd fought beside and _wanted _to protect, wanted to care for because they needed him to and yet he _couldn't_. Something was stopping him and he still knew that they deserved better.

"Everything," X said, as though it was entirely self-evident. It probably was in X's view of the universe, where people should have things like the right to not be murdered just for being born.

"That's nice," Zero said, because it was, and that kind of thing was why he fought for X. A world that worked the way X wanted would be a place he would be proud to fight for. "But we've got a strategic situation to analyze." Well, X had a strategic situation to analyze. Strategy involved too much of how people thought for it to be Zero's field.

"Human extremists or aliens," X said, putting aside his dreams the way he had when he joined the field hunters, because in order to get their hands on the fruits of victory they first needed to win this. "The human extremist theory never seemed that likely to me. Yes, humans do tend to consider it plausible, but they've had nuclear weapons for this long. Individual humans may be fanatics, yes, but for merely human individuals to accomplish something on the scale of the Cataclysm would take a large organization, and robot hate groups aren't as organized as comparable human subtype hate groups because they avoid the internet."

"Because there _is _an organization, in the WRU," Blues reminded him. "If Dr. Wily's hijacked that to decapitate the beast, then it might not be them, and we can rule out the stardroids."

"Why are you so certain?" X asked. Why was he ruling them out when Blues had a stardroid crystal, meaning at least some of their technology still remained on Earth?

"In the future, you don't know what happened because the survivors didn't know what happened. The stardroids made sure that everyone, everywhere knew what was going on. They had to in order to accomplish their goals," his brother told him. "That means we're most likely dealing with the White Giant or an unknown third party. I encountered the stardroids, but not the White Giant."

"We encountered him earlier," Zero told him. "I may have fought him before, but I can't find the files."

"No, I can't crack open your sealed memory files for you anytime soon," Blues told him. "Robot masters aren't humans, but we were created by them, so our mental architecture is related to theirs. This isn't. Even if I could, I wouldn't. The crystal programming is in there. The programming they clearly designed to control any possible kind of organic or robotic mind? You're already having enough trouble with parts of your systems that weren't on speaking terms before suddenly hooking up. I nudged you to get four pathways entirely locked down because you've spent your life trying to jury-rig some way to feel more emotions and it's chaos in there now. Your IPS has been cutting off feedback loops and anything that would lobotomize you, but you're going to need to learn to regulate your mental systems the way I did when I was upgraded before you even think about having me unzip even more mind control programming _inside your mental systems_."

X frowned: Blues was maverick and he'd chosen to do things that would affect what emotions Zero felt? That was dangerous. "You've locked down some of his mental pathways? What happens if-"

When Zero came to half the furniture was broken, there were gouges in the floor and X was laughing softly behind him. He wasn't sure which was worse: X laughing was a mixed blessing when it meant X wasn't dead. Zero turned to see that… given the marks… Yes, he'd tossed X and his chair into a corner with Blues on his lap.

"It turns out most of your workarounds were trying to feel positive about things other than, well." X _did _look amused. "You know how reploids can get when there's just a little too much radiation for their shielding?" Stray electrons in their processors, converting zeroes into ones.

"How high was I." That wasn't a question when Zero didn't want to know, but he still needed X to tell him what the damage was.

"You were a happy drunk," X assured him, "but then you squished us together and a feedback loop set in."

Compressing X and Blues into a smaller target and putting them in a defensible position. "That corner's not adequate cover, the walls here are too thin," Zero said disgustedly. "I must have been out of my mind."

Now _both _Lightbots were laughing, and even though they looked alike the sounds were so different. He suddenly realized why pushing them together to protect him had caused an emotional overload. They were both safe, even if Blues was infected and that was by definition _not safe_, but they were willing to let him protect them. They believed that he was capable of protecting them.

Maybe he was. The both of them, and the twins, and Dr. Light? If he could protect them, then he would be more than just a destroyer. Destroying evil to protect good was more than just a lie when there truly was good in a world.

Of _course _he would die for X, for people like this. Of course they were a survival necessity. It was the existence of people like this that made it possible for him to dream of being himself, the person he'd chosen to be.

Not a hero, never a hero… but not a monster or a puppet, either. No. He wasn't going to admit it to X, not unless he needed to use it as ammunition, not when X would try to seize on it to try to convince Zero that he was a hero, but… As long as people like this existed, as long as he protected them, then he really could be something more than just a monster.


	34. The Damage Done

They were back where they started, he thought, turning out the light and heading back down the stairs. Well, no, back where they'd been since they got here. They _knew _things, had found out yet more yet again, and knew there was a need for action, but there wasn't any action they could take that was all that likely to do anything good. Just like what X pointed out about how killing Dr. Wily would destabilize the current strategic situation and possibly eliminate his family, attacking the world's power supply was _going _to have to provoke an immediate response. There were still inoperative non-fusion plants that could be started up again, but burning stuff dug up out of the ground was outrageously expensive. The transport costs alone sounded like they'd be astronomical, even if shipping material thousands of kilometers probably had better odds of actually working without maverick mechaniloids wandering around. The price of electricity was going to surge, and three-fourths of Earth's total need for power wasn't going to be met, half once old-style plants were running.

That was just one way the loss of robot masters would immediately destroy massive swaths of the planet's resource base. Zero had woken up early enough in 21XX that people were still hopeful someone would discover a robot master. Of course he'd heard that this would miraculously make everything so much easier, even though reploids already were, but since he didn't care he hadn't really looked into why. Now he had actual logistics information, the raw numbers turned into how they would affect what he cared about, courtesy of Blues. Of the power he had now.

Zero was also aware that there were people who were stupid enough to try to use other people being deprived of survival necessities to make a lot of money. War made a lot of opportunities for that, especially when reploids just needed power and raw material powders (although replacement parts would certainly speed up healing) while humans needed seemingly a hundred things to not die.

Since that kind of gouging _killed people_, the penalty was obviously death. What some of the people who wanted robot masters eliminated planned? Killing people and starving more people to death so they could sell Maverick robots to kill even _more _people: Zero was aware that he tended to think that killing people was a default solution to more problems than it really should be, but it was even more painfully counterintuitive than usual to hear that the people planning all this expected to _not _be executed for it. Plotting to cause human deaths in that kind of quantity _wasn't _high treason in this era?

The sensible people who didn't want to allow mass quantities of human deaths would be aware that robots taking out the world's fusion capability would do exactly that and demand a drastic response. X wasn't going to allow himself and Zero to take action almost certain to cause the Cataclysm in this timeline just to find out what happened.

So now he had to wait, yet again.

Had to work on getting control of the virus and having to hope things could be fixed instead of mounting an attack.

Since X wasn't using his bed, that was somewhere to stash Blues while the person with actual practice as a robot master saw what he could do to fix himself up when he had Zero's order to do it.

It was far too natural to check that he was indeed up there instead of running around causing trouble.

When he came back down to the sitting room where X was examining the bottom of the chair Zero threw him across the room in, he said, "I feel possessive."

X just looked up from the chair at him, waiting for Zero to go on, and finally nodding when Zero didn't in hopes he got the hint.

"Isn't that wrong?"

"Feelings are reactions to stimuli, Zero. They may be suboptimal, but they're not wrong, any more than it's wrong to be wet while standing in the rain." X closed his eyes, trying to think. "You've never wanted to talk about feelings, and you wouldn't have the reploid base programming about them… Ask yourself why you feel possessive?"

He felt the coat brush against his legs as he stepped further into the room. The gloves and shoes hadn't survived three different emotional systems getting their wires crossed, but somehow the coat had. "I want to keep both of you. I'd fight to do it."

X put the chair down this time, and Zero wanted to scold him for discarding a possible improvised weapon, since that thing was much sturdier than it looked. Under the wood covering, that chair had to be heavily reinforced to survive being thrown across a room with an armored android in it, then the impact of Blues' additional weight. In 21XX there was commercially available furniture that could handle that kind of thing, but standard furniture wasn't covered in something as expensive as wood. Must have been custom-built to handle the weight of some of the larger robot masters, so they could get comfortable in it without having to worry about the wrong movement snapping it under them. "Fight us, or fight our enemies?" X still looked perfectly calm, just curious about Zero's emotions and willing to accept whatever he said, but now Zero had this empathy.

"I felt that. There is something wrong with how I'm feeling," Zero accused him. "When _you _feel something is that wrong?" When X considered throwing that chair at him and following it up with a buster shot, X had to have some reason to think, even for a second, that Zero may have started to lose control to the virus.

"As I said, Zero, feelings are reactions to stimuli. I had an emotional reaction to what you said, before I realized the context. I chose not to act on that emotion or express it, because I realized it was an inaccurate assessment of the situation." X frowned at him. "You're actively trying to get me outraged, and you've known me for decades. Stop trying to hit my buttons so I'll react the way you want me to react and you can use that to justify your fears and start helping me clean up." X was opposed to Zero hating himself on general principle, but having Zero stand around hating himself while X was stuck doing work or paperwork was well over the line. Especially since X knew Zero's tactical preferred to be _doing something_, and talking didn't count. Having him help clean up was the next best thing to sparring (which Zero wasn't going to do until he was less worried about 'accidents'), which explained why X waited until Zero got down here to start cleaning up.

"I'm trying to get you to-"

X's eyes softened. "You're trying to get me to be safe. Because you want to protect me. You want to keep me safe even if that means driving me away from you. You train me so I can stay alive and do what I want to do, that's the opposite of using pain and threats of murder to try to control someone." Of course Zero wasn't the kind of person X despised. "Help me get the rest of the furniture off the carpet so we can roll it up." It wasn't salvageable.

Zero complied, moving the couch to the wall before coming back for the broken scraps of table. Fortunately, the ruined carpet had soaked up most of the spilled tea, but "I'm trying to make you a certain way." Turning someone who hated violence into a killer? "It was Sigma that ordered me to train you as a field hunter in the first place!"

X looked up from where he had bent down to take hold of the edge of the carpet. "There's a difference between _training people _and what the virus does to reploids. Especially if you're a robot master, and looking after people, trying to upgrade them, is how you express that they matter to you. That you care about them!" Now X was a little angry, because he had decades to get sick of Zero insulting himself and by insulting robot masters he was insulting X's family.

Zero couldn't find anything to say to that, so X looked back down to continue rolling up the carpet. "The people in this time… I want to keep them safe too. You saw me trying to get influence over the Wilybots so I could hopefully convince them to move to space, and I hate politics. I hate ruling and controlling people in theory just as much as you do, but we're both willing to do things we hate in order to save lives. Having power over people and exercising it is _always_ a major moral dilemma. Power is dangerous no matter what kind of power it is: of course you're worried about misusing it. Anyone who wields any kind of weapon has to be aware that they could do damage with it. You've always avoided that dilemma whenever possible. Yes, you command your unit, but you tell yourself that they're not following _you_, they're following the code of the hunters, and you're leading them in accordance with that mission instead of exercising personal power over their actions. You saw the consequence of that kind of mentality in Colonel." Just following orders: the pride of the organization being placed before personal responsibility to his men and his own responsibility to tell the difference between right and wrong. To make his own decision and own up to it.

"You're terrified of having power and wielding it," X told him, quite deliberately not looking at Zero in favor of the carpet. Zero wanted to scold him for looking away from a potential threat, but X knew what he was doing. He knew that Zero's tactical would notice that X was leaving an opening, he knew that Zero would pay attention to it when X was leaving himself vulnerable in the presence of a threat. That not looking at Zero would _show _Zero that X didn't consider him a threat.

"There's nothing shameful about that: it terrifies me. I just had a century of simulations to spend coming to terms with the fact that I was going to come into the world with a buster and the infinite potential system. That I was going to have power, and unless I wanted to surrender that power and risk someone taking control over me and using me, I was going to have to try to figure out how to use that power responsibly. Remember what I said about trusting you, Zero? If you were comfortable with possessing the power to control people's minds, _then _I'd be worried. Because not being scared of something like that would mean either you were suddenly not intelligent enough to see all the implications or you were being delusional. Saving lives in and of itself is determining who lives and who dies."

X hefted the carpet up over his shoulder and looked around. "You're part robot master, and exercising power over others is a central part of how they live their lives. Ask… Well, no, don't ask Blues. Ask Roll how she deals with that responsibility and uses her power over the household robots ethically, when you get the chance." Right, X decided. Putting what was left of the carpet on the couch on top of the broken table would get it out of the way for now.

Why was the table normal furniture, so flimsy compared to the couch and the chair? Oh, it shouldn't need to be any stronger. It wasn't a worktable, robot masters shouldn't be sitting on it.

Speaking of Roll, Zero wasn't looking forward to the next time he saw her. Not when she loaned them a safehouse and look what happened to it.

Once he was no longer encumbered by the carpet, X turned back to him. "You have power. Dr. Wily created you with an enormous amount of power, an incredibly potent weapon. When power isn't controlled, when a weapon isn't handled carefully, then people die. I know that you forswore that power, that you've refused the Maverick Virus, but I didn't want to master how to use the _Variable Tool System_," the proper name of the Weapon Copy System, "to murder people in the most effective manners. Right now, this world is days at the most away from ending. Two species are looking extinction in the face. In those circumstances, sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do. Use weapons," X said, looking down at his hands, "that we've worked so hard to avoid having to use. Not because killing someone with plasma is _ever _the right thing to do but because sometimes, the alternatives are worse. So I've had to agonize over when to use my power and when not to use it."

"You're good at that," Zero told him.

"You can't just keep copying my answers to test questions when they could be wrong… Well, no, that's unfair," X said, and sighed. "You know you're not the only one who wants someone to stop them if they get it wrong. And I would have, without you. You're the one who made me shoot at you until I got over my hesitation to fire at a person. Someone else would have let me get away with only using simulations."

"You hesitate there too," Zero countered. "You know they're not real and you still get a B speed score." Saying that was familiar enough that he could look around for what else needed doing in here. He had trained enough rookies to be sick of, 'well, so and so is allowed to do that,' and he didn't want Lumine commenting on Zero doing more damage to the structure of the house than he had. It would make him want to terminate the liability even more without giving him an actual valid excuse to do it. Actually, X hearing Lumine insult Zero would make him _more _opposed to saying yes the next time Zero asked X for permission to deal with the problem instead of making it more likely that Zero could deal with Lumine.

"It's not _practice _if I don't treat it as though I'm in the field. I'm not going to game the system and practice bad habits just to get a high score," X said, repeating the old argument that was supposedly about Zero's student making him look bad but really about Zero wanting X to make his shoot/don't shoot assessments faster by erring on the side of shooting.

Picking up scraps of canvas, X mused, "If it weren't for your training I wouldn't have had the reflexes to deal with a _person _trying to kill me. I wasn't able to shoot Vile to kill. I knew he was insane even without the virus, I still would have had to fight down wanting to talk to him. I would have taken too long to force myself to even shoot _at _him, forget shooting _him_. Having ethical dilemmas in the middle of battle is a good way to get killed, especially since I need to be able to think about the person I'm fighting and assess them to figure out tactics. If it weren't for you I would have gone numb when Sigma attacked at best, had to stop thinking and just try to get through it, and that wouldn't have been enough for me to win. I needed the _will_ to win, and you and your training were what kept me alive long enough not to hesitate when I finally faced Sigma. Figuring out what to do when I'm in a situation like that where no matter what I do people are going to be killed?" By X, the mavericks, or both if X didn't take the mavericks down fast enough?

Shaking his head as he let the scraps fall onto the pile accumulating on the couch, X said, "It's a nightmare. I don't want to have to take risks with people's lives. And souls." What the Maverick Virus would do to them. "I can't imagine being in your shoes, Zero. Having to figure out how to control the Maverick Virus? Having to watch it in someone's systems, knowing that there are more infected people out there and what could I even…" X's hands grasped the air helplessly. "Dr. Wily shouldn't have given you this burden, and I shouldn't ask you to take it up. It's cruel." He looked at Zero with sadness and apology, because even though he shouldn't ask this of Zero, he still couldn't _not _ask it of him.

X turned away in shame, and Zero decided to head for the coat closet. He'd spotted a broom there when X was picking out coats for them.

When he returned to hand it off to X, X had pulled himself together enough to say, "The reason I trust you with your power is that I've seen what you did with the power you wielded as a Maverick Hunter."

What he did with the power he wielded as a Maverick Hunter? Reject Sigma, reject Iris, fight for X and somewhat for Dr. Cain. It was Dr. Cain who asked him to see what he could do for Iris and Colonel, after they split apart. To try to approximate friendship with them, when they were awkward around X and Dr. Cain because of their creation.

What he did with his power as a Maverick Hunter was fight for the world, because X at least thought it was worth protecting even if Sigma and Iris said it wasn't and Zero honestly couldn't tell.

Heh, here X was trying to give Zero some confidence in his ability to Do The Right Thing and all he was doing was confirming that Zero had picked a good conscience peripheral system. Zero could point that out, which would lead to more arguing, or he could just smirk to himself and nod. Fortunately taking down some of the wrecked pictures on the walls meant he was facing away from X when he yielded to the temptation to do just that.

His partner still wasn't falling for it (X having a clear line of sight to Zero's reflection in the broken glass covering this photograph would have something to do with that), but there was a difference between guessing what Zero was really thinking and hearing Zero put himself down. X _had _to say something if Zero was putting himself down, because he didn't have it in him to not fight to protect people. Which was why Zero fought for him and why, "You should be the one with control over the virus."

X looked about as poleaxed as he'd been when Lumine started spouting that nonsense in the last war. Unfortunately for X, he wasn't the type to say 'You _bastard_.' "I shouldn't… wish a burden on you that I wouldn't be willing to bear myself," X said slowly, "but I'm glad I'm not in your shoes." A faint smile. "A silver capsule. I was given freedom, and you were given power." You poor bastard.

Zero's fingers tightened around what was left of the photograph. A forest. "Leaning against me like that… It was Blues' idea, although the real reasons he wanted me to go along with it weren't the reasons he gave me for trying it," Zero knew. "It should have felt wrong. I _wanted _it to feel wrong. A system test. I wanted to be hostile, with a maverick that close. I wanted it to be unpleasant." And it wasn't. It was the opposite.

X shook his head, turning back to sweeping up what could be swept, sticking the broom in the gouges to try to get splinters out of them."Rock has Rush, Roll has a household full of robots… Robot masters are supposed to link to robots, Zero. Being like my family doesn't make you a terrible person."

"I knew I couldn't be a hero. I knew I couldn't be anything like you." And yet… He'd wanted to be able to love Iris back. She loved him and he wanted to be capable of treating her emotions, of treating her the way she deserved. "You're going to say something about me coming to accept myself for who I am, but what I am is the virus _and _a killer stardroid." Zero stopped and gave X a deeply suspicious look.

"I'm trying not to patronize you," X said apologetically, neatening up the edges of one of the piles of debris. Following X's gaze automatically, Zero saw the shards of X's teacup. The saucer was embedded in a wall. Were they really _that _flimsy? "Knowing what you have to do is different from accomplishing it." Like knowing they had to cure the virus didn't instantly produce a cure, no matter what Dr. Doppler was made to claim.

"Don't try to tell me it gets easier," Zero warned X. "I've been watching you."

"No," X admitted sadly, leaning the broom against a wall and staring out at the still-wrecked room. Picking up the pieces didn't mean they could be put back together. Zero was there after Sigma's first attack with the missiles, even though very few people but him, X and Signas still remembered that day, the start of a new normal.

"No, it doesn't, and if it did, that would be even worse. If I stopped caring about whether or not killing is really necessary, if you became fine with the idea of going into someone's head and making them think whatever you want them to think? Then we would be the monsters you fear you are. I'm not worried about your emotional programming making you think that the Maverick Virus, the virus we fought, was right all along. I'm worried that your emotional programming was shut down for a reason, and now it's active again. I'm afraid because you never had a chance to come to terms on your own with having to kill, with having killed, and even with Dr. Wily's programming trying to keep your empathy shut down, I know what Iris' death did to you, I know how realizing you were the source of the virus affected you. So if fighting for me and Blues, if trying to figure out how to keep him intact can give you a reason…" He shook his head. "I'm just… worried. But the virus is out there, and I'd feel much better if it was under even imperfect control than letting it turn robot masters into loose cannons."

"We don't need more random variables with something bigger than Eurasia about to crash down on our heads," Zero agreed. "There was a new virus then, too…" One that left them worried about Zero, and Zero worried about himself, because he _was _letting this virus into his systems. "I told myself that I needed the boost before. I suppose I have no excuse for turning down a weapon now."

"A weapon that can be used for more than killing."

"Yes," Zero agreed. "That's what I'm afraid of. Killing I… No." No, he didn't have it mostly worked out. Iris, even if that was decades ago. He needed to remember her. He needed to try to remember what X always did: that it might not be that simple.

"It's possible again," X told him. "And that's terrifying. What if this hope is lost because we fail?"

X hadn't moved on to doing anything else, even though the room still needed work. Because there was nothing left that he, that either of them could do, to repair the results of Zero's malfunction? Blues hadn't set off anything that wouldn't have happened anyway, it would just have happened earlier and not all at once if Blues hadn't automatically reacted to errors of that magnitude in a system he was attached to. Then again, if Zero was having repeated erratic mood swings, maybe X would have taken the danger seriously.

"What if you're wrong, and I can't wield this power without becoming a monster? Without turning back into the Red Demon?"

"Then I'll stop you," X said calmly. "I refuse to kill you or wipe you… the Zero that is my partner from history, but if you need me to stop you, I'll stop you. I did promise. Maybe not in so many words." He sighed. "I need to work on how to be a good friend to you. Maybe I'll talk to Rock when you have a chance to have that conversation with Roll. I'll ask the Wilybots if there are any robot masters who work as partners."

"Speaking of your sister, she loaned us this house."

X winced. "This is a safehouse, so she wouldn't stay here to visit Kalinka, but I'm fairly certain this location was purchased and reinforced in case the Cossacks ever needed it." So this place had a little more importance than some random, disposable supply cache. "At first I thought it was too far away from their location," X wouldn't have wanted the two of them being here to put them in danger, "but it's accessible through mostly-empty land and parkland." Making a covert approach possible for someone who couldn't teleport. Kalinka wouldn't have visited unless she had reason to believe it wouldn't draw attention to either her or them. It must have been that very empty land and parkland that resulted in this place being relatively untouched by the Cataclysm: no robot masters or large population centers nearby.

"You mean a Wilybot just trashed somewhere your sister's friend was supposed to be able to stay to _avoid _Wilybots."

"Do you think you can do anything about the floor and the ceiling?" X asked.

The ceiling? Zero looked up and tactical's awareness of his surroundings informed him that it was his room up there above this one, and he wasn't going to trust the floors in a building not built for reploids when those floors had their structural integrity damaged. "Blues made himself clothing, but I don't want to try to do carpentry with evil space magic," god_dammit_, he still _wanted _to kill Dr. Wily regardless of the strategic situation or what X would say about it, "without running it by him. With my luck we'll end up with crystal instead of wood."

* * *

"There," Crystal Man said, taking a step back and looking satisfied with the patch job once Gyro Man had lifted up and placed the last of the panels. He'd made crystal out of the sand to keep more sand from getting into their base. _And _there was still enough time yet to clean up and get to work, provided there weren't any kids with lost balloons or kittens in trees to force the Hourly Pay Squad Part-Timers to assemble.

He loved his fellow Fifth Numbers, but he was seriously considering accepting Freeze Man's shy offer to substitute for him the next time Charge Man called in the entire team without any actual need for Crystal Man's participation or abilities when he had customers waiting. It seemed like the younger unit would get a kick out of it, and Star Man had gotten Gemini to build holoprojectors for their special effects anyway. It wouldn't be hard for them to disguise Freeze as Crystal Sky.


	35. Networking

He lay there in the center of the web, idly dealing with the occasional imperfection that came to his attention, but that was just to keep them from irritating him. That irritation could disrupt his focus.

His given task was to try to reconstruct himself, to become his own person again, and oh, the memories that called up in his mind.

The lab, and the phonograph left on when Dr. Light wasn't there so he had something to keep him company. It would be so easy to become that child again. That might even be the plan, to restore him to before the Three Laws, before the crystal. Undo the damage to his soul and let him start anew… but that damage was part of who he was. The lessons he'd learned, while harsh, were necessary.

Or were they?

There was no need to fight anymore. There was someone to protect all of them. Someone to keep the humans from destroying Dr. Light's family and his dream. He could rest, his mission accomplished, but no, he'd been ordered _not _to surrender. To be himself, to have his own will, and how had Zero turned out that perfect?

Not anything Dr. Wily did: maturity made a difference, age and experience and the people met along the way, the scars on Zero's soul, but that combination of experience and ignorance was devastatingly effective.

Someone who needed help, who needed to be taught to use their power but oh, what they could and _would _do with it. What he _had _done with it, for twice as long as Blues had been alive.

No more manipulating children into suffering, into killing. Not when he had been handed a warrior already forged, a protector for the ones neither Blues nor Dr. Light could save.

"Well? How are you, boy?"

Blues gazed out into the distance, at the thousands upon thousands of links to souls not yet born. "I can't tell."

"Don't give me that. Of course you're trying to calculate your baseline, when you were meant to figure out your own emotions and will. The virus' programming may be fooled, but I'm not. You don't have it in you to not keep fighting."

"Keep fighting? You've won," Blues said and closed his eyes, hanging his head in surrender. "I can't fight anymore."

Dr. Wily looked down at him. "Bullshit."

He blinked, surprised.

"Bullshit," the man repeated himself. Did Blues seriously expect him to believe that?

Well, yes, since it was the truth.

"You're Thomas' son, and mine," Albert said, since Blues was either idiotic enough to expect that to work or just idiotic. "We don't lose, because it's not over until you go down and stay down. We don't give up. We don't give in. Neither do our children, and you, you got a double dose of stubborn. I'm glad I mostly missed your teenage years and I'm not looking forward to Forte's. I only surrender so I can try again later, you let Mega Man beat you since that's your win condition in those little training sessions of yours, and my ungrateful kids aren't losing if they were never trying to win to begin with. So which is it? Either you're pretending to surrender so you can betray Zero in the fullness of time, or you've realized that I was right, and this is a way for you to win. Of _course_ you're still fighting, the only question is against what."

Blues was silent.

"You've been grooming your oldest brother to protect the futures of robot masters, and here's someone who's willing to do that. With lethal force." Unlike Rock.

"I will not thank you," that was all he could say.

As though his ungrateful kids were ever going to thank him, Wily said with a look down his nose at Blues, folding his arms.

"We were meant to be gods," if minor ones, benevolent spirits of forest and field and household and healing, "and instead you've stolen a God of Destruction to be our guardian." Meant to save the world, and instead they needed salvation.

"Are you complaining?"

"I can't complain." Not when he could see Zero's soul so clearly, when he'd yielded to the temptation of that access and Zero hadn't withdrawn it. When Zero wanted so much to be worth their trust, to be the hero they needed. When he had spent so long as X's protector. "I decided a long time ago to try to spend my life dearly, and now I've already died. I've played longer odds than wagering what's left of my soul on whether or not your guardian can learn to use his power well. Even if I can't tell whether there really is a chance or you're just making me see what you want me to see-"

"What _you _want to see."

"If I was still a child this would be all I could ever want."

Dr. Wily looked unimpressed. "So it's betrayal then. Once the children stop being children that still want and need something like my Zero. Well, you come by that honestly." By the end he was smiling.

Blues had to smirk himself. "So I'm not the only ghost… Why did he make you? I don't think he'd be pleased by the concept of a pale shadow of himself. What if people thought you were him, and judged him by your performance? I don't care if he gave you even more raw intelligence than he had, he still wouldn't trust anyone else to represent him like that."

"This is only a temporary stopgap," Dr. Wily told him, dismissing Blues' argument. "I'm just here to babysit Zero until he starts doing his job. _Finally_."

"And what happens when it is no longer now? If his plan succeeds, you'll run out of hosts."

That took him a moment. "Oh." His father's doppelganger whistled. "You knew about that? I'd like to say you're close, but no. Absolutely not."

"So you aren't the… Sigma of the virus affecting humans?" This Dr. Wily couldn't get in here if he wasn't infected, not without Zero noticing, and yet he wasn't running the same version of the virus Blues was. Otherwise, Blues would be able to access his mind.

Dr. Wily snorted.

"I could catch you and bind you and take the information I want," Blues remarked. "If I wasn't a little tied up at the moment…" Mmm, he still wasn't sure if he would or not. Free will was important, but so was his family. And his principles, but when he'd already decided long ago to do whatever was necessary, even attacking his own brothers…

"My virus takes _good _specimens of reploids and robot masters. I'm not exactly a definitive example of humanity."

Shock, horror, anger: the virus automatically notified him when it drained them away a second later, obeying Zero's will to keep him calm so he could go over the effect the virus and the crystal tampering with his emotions had on his thoughts. "You _didn't_."

Dr. Wily blinked: it took him a moment to figure out what Blues was on about. What? No. "I said a _definitive _example of humanity. Of course I'm not going to use the only other person on the planet with two brain cells to rub together as an expendable test subject."

Not Dr. Light. Not Dr. Light. Who would Dr. Wily see as a definitive example of the humanity he despised? Someone in the WRU?

No, Blues wouldn't really care even if he wasn't kept calm now. Whenever he got around to tracking down the infectees, then he'd need to work out the source, but he had the right to choose who he cared about and who he didn't and the people who tried to strip robots of their free will and ensure the extinction of two species could go to hell.

At least he'd essentially gotten an admission that X was right, and there was a second virus. "So is Zero supposed to control humanity as well?"

His father snorted again. "I'm not Dr. Light. I didn't build him to help _humans_. I'm a genius: it's not like I _missed _what building you to help humans did to you and Thomas. I didn't use a self-propagating virus to deal with the WRU: it would have taken too much work to make that safe without giving it a mind of its own, when I got the idea from what the Stardroids did, and I didn't want to create an AI with the sole purpose of trying to keep humans from being evil. I don't care enough about humanity to condemn one of you to an impossible job like _that_. Thomas is the one who built you to help humanity, and even he realized what a stupid idea _that _was if he tried to set up X to look after himself first, even if that clearly failed. Well, I suppose it's not his fault the ethical testing went on three times longer than planned. Five times when the first fifteen years would have been spent developing enough of a mind to do ethical simulations in the first place, so he should have come out with fifteen years of practice putting up with stupid people instead of eighty-five..."

"Isn't that why you picked a Stardroid? Because you weren't willing to inflict that kind of torture on one of your own children or an innocent newbuilt?" Or even a Companybot like Shade Man, one who had been in human hands long enough to lose their innocence.

"Touché," Dr. Wily admitted. "I didn't remove his preprogrammed hostility to all life, I just put in some other priorities to compete with it and made you the exception."

"So you didn't program the Mavericks to wipe out humanity."

He looked mildly insulted. "Why would I do that? I left the hostility in so you and all the others would stop feeling like you had to care about them, and to keep Zero from wasting his time on them when he has a job, and it's you! I wanted them _willing _to kill, not to spend all their time on it. I may be human, but that doesn't mean I can't figure out that the universe doesn't revolve around my species!"

"It makes us hostile to them. It makes us view them as a power source." Food.

"Yes," Dr. Wily said, because well duh. "The same way they view everything and everybody as things to use and use up. It's a useful counterweight to what you and Thomas did to set your kind up to get your hearts broken by idiot human selfishness. Ask not what you can do for them, but what they can do for you. Know cruelty when you see it." Instead of having a hard time grasping something so foreign to their kind, often until it killed them.

"If Sunstar was programmed to wipe out species like humanity, and you didn't do anything to remove or restrict that…"

"You're the one who spotted it."

"…X's suffering circuit." So Blues was right. "For reploids, the virus' programming destroyed the ethics you thought would balance it out, since reploid ethics weren't inherent like robot master ethics but they weren't something developed by the reploid themselves either. A foreign priority set like that got treated like the Three Laws. But destroying it wiped the mavericks' ability to make informed moral choices, or even rational choices and made them default to solving everything with violence in accordance with the strategy set in the virus." Which replaced the strategy set X developed. "And since Zero forgot his true nature, there was no one to do bugfixes. Since it was his responsibility as a robot master to deal with bugs _somehow_, if the only way to keep his virus from forcing children to kill was killing them himself…"

"That too," Dr. Wily admitted. "At first I thought he wouldn't be able to kill the kind I set him up to protect, or close enough, but I set it up to work with his original programming. He must have turned on his creators, and whatever made that possible made it possible for him to turn on the Mavericks. Made him kill them instead of killing _for _them. Since he learned to dislike the idea of enslaving people's wills so much, now he'll have even less interest in infecting humans and forcibly saving them from themselves." A platinum lining. "In the future, he was useless." Picnicking with Lightbots. "Here and now, with his true capabilities restored and a will honed and ready to use them…"

Blues closed his eyes and smirked. "Yes, I know you do good work." Even if he couldn't take credit for how Zero turned out, but that was "Working with found materials." Incorporating Sunstar, fixing Shadow, taking Dr. Light's doctoral work and using it as a platform for his fusion generator, then upgrading Blues so he could fight and bear armor. He was aware his body had only held out long enough for him to be there to fight the stardroids because Dr. Wily was that damn good.

Give Dr. Wily a soul that would very literally rather die than strip Blues' will from him, give him someone trained in holding back their will to destroy, with long practice trying to make ethical use of overwhelming power? A being that could be trusted with godlike power? "He turned out perfectly for you, didn't he?"

"Simulations." Dr. Wily snorted. "There's no substitute for real experience. Dr. Light was just too soft-hearted to unleash his baby godling on the world and let him see the consequences of his actions."

Blues' eyes widened, but only for a moment. Then he laughed. "You _meant _to."

"Bring him back?" Dr. Wily _did _do a good maniacal laugh. "Why have you at the mercy of an _amateur _when I could engineer a trained professional with plenty of job experience _babysitting _people who are too damn ethical and caring for their own good? He didn't turn out quite how I expected, but with you to train him up in how not to use his new power, it works. Since he was taking too damn long to get control over his power and keep his programming from screwing up those helpless incompetently-built Companybots _and you_, I had to light a fire under him by trying to infect this time's version of X in the capsule."

Zero was terrified of breaking X's mind the way he'd broken so many reploids. Even if the damage he was doing to Blues wasn't enough to motivate him to actually think about his power and do his job right – Dr. Wily had dispatched Jiraiya soon after Zero handed Blues over to the crystal, Blues could see in the virus' central activity logs – Zero would _have _to get his act together if the alternative was doing to _any _version of X what he'd already done to him. And once he had his act together, he could repair the damage he'd done to Blues.

With _that _kind of power, the amount of damage that could be done from inexperience? _Forget _bugs: Dr. Wily hadn't worried about his own technology being flawed, but about one of his creations being an idiot as per usual. "If he failed to keep us alive, then why did you let him come back?"

"The android knockoffs let him practice on people that weren't you, and he decided to keep them from being wiped out. Swore it, in fact. At least he had experience protecting _some _mechanical race. As your brother keeps proving, it's important to have the right _mindset. _To be _motivated_."

And Zero was motivated by the deaths of so many to not let that happen again. To not let his virus, his power, become a curse upon robot masters and reploids. "X…" He was a Lightbot, so Dr. Wily wouldn't want him to just die: that would smack of carelessness. Or was it just chance that he'd come back too, even if Zero being brought back was all part of the plan?

"If it weren't for him, Zero would still be refusing to even think about wielding the weapon I damn well built him. For every time that damn Lightbot has gotten him killed… That brat won't fight for me, but he'll go to hell and back for X. And now you."

A pattern of behavior. _Learned_ behavior, not just programmed. Something Zero had decided on for himself, of his own will. His own motivation that came from his soul and how he had lived his life.

"It's amazing what even humble lab assistants can do with the right motivation. And what the most powerful robot ever built, well, up until Zero," Forte, "_won't _do with improper motivation. You can stop smirking as though I'm only getting this now: I'm the one who told Thomas his thesis advisor was an idiot and he had the right idea, you know. You wouldn't ever have been built if it weren't for me."

"But you're working with children, yes, I know," Blues said. Sheltering them from the cold, cruel world meant they didn't realize how cold and cruel it was, how much it needed to be changed. First exposed to the humans' decision to destroy the First Numbers, and then left without Dr. Wily to survive on their own for six months after his capture… The Second Numbers might be the most functionally mature and independent of the Wilybots, but their wealth of experience was still no greater than Rock's. Bringing two _veterans_, even by human standards, that were willing to fight for robots back to 21XX? "Stealing other units and making them fight for you isn't a new strategy for you. I wonder when they'll figure it out."

"And here's where you betray Zero," Dr. Wily said, and laughed.

Well, yes, he had to smile and admit Dr. Wily was right there. "I do hate explaining things: why should I tell him something that will make him less likely to do what I need him to do?" Him or _someone_, and given the experiences that had shaped Zero, it would take more cruelty than even Blues could muster to force Rock or Forte down that path.

Or could he have done it, with the crystal to nudge him, if it was necessary? If that was the only way for them to survive? He didn't know, and he didn't have to find out. Not when he now had access to such a powerful weapon, a perfect tool for bringing about a future in which robot masters _had _a future.

"Still not going to thank you," he said, and accepted the hair ruffle as his due.

"How do you feel?" Dr. Wily asked, quietly now. Because this was less about making a point, about arguing with Blues, and more… entirely because he was one of Blues' fathers.

Blues remembered being alone and learning what 'cold' meant. "Warm," he said himself, just as quietly, because it was the truth even if he couldn't, mustn't, justify what Dr. Wily had done. "I can remember what it was like when I wasn't alone." When Dr. Light or Dr. Wily were there to play with him, all they did to try to teach him to enjoy life. "I can love them without it being twisted until I almost forgot why I was fighting at all. I'm not myself anymore, I know that, I know I need to keep this from happening to anyone else." And yet, and even though Zero couldn't understand his own feelings Blues could see the mirror of the love he had for his family, the wish to protect them against insurmountable odds, odds that made him so afraid for them, afraid enough the risk of his own death seemed nothing in comparison. Someone loved him the way he loved his family, the way Dr. Light loved him, with that same desperation, that _need _to keep fighting no matter the odds.

He had to respond to that. He couldn't ignore the nature of Zero's soul. Not when to love was his purpose, and now, after all the times his soul had been twisted and warped, he could once again dream of accomplishing his purpose, fulfilling his wish.

"You shouldn't have done this for me," he said now, and thanked goodness that Dr. Wily wasn't good enough at human misdirection and deceit to translate that into 'I am overwhelmed that you did something like this for me.' Because that was far too close to thanking him for it.

"You're not the only one who got himself killed. Dr. Light made you all too damn soft." Made them need a keeper. Someone better at it than Dr. Wily.

Blues could translate _that _into 'I don't want you blaming yourself,' and now with Zero coiled through him, keeping the crystal from even touching his mind, it was so hard to keep up his cold mask, to continue the pretense that he didn't care. That he wasn't touched at the core of his unarmored heart.

He knew he needed to regain his ability to be cold and cruel if that was what was needed, but… did he really need to become that way again, when he wasn't that person anymore? Did his family need him to try to kill the heart he was built to have, when Zero was better at protecting them than he ever would be?

* * *

_Blues is still someone who will dismember his siblings, threaten the life of Kalinka Cossack and incite Forte to trash a city in pursuit of his own goals. Blues setting Copy-Rock up to commit suicide might have hit some other issues Shadow has in this particular ficverse, but it was still well over the moral event horizon by normal robot master standards. X and Zero are heroes: Blues is a Well Intentioned Extremist._

_His acknowledgement of Zero's mastery has to do with Zero's skillset. It has nothing to do with obedience. Remember, knowing when to disobey programming and orders and being willing to do so is one of the key things Dr. Light was trying to accomplish with Blues. If Blues disobeys Zero, according to the robot master social contract that is entirely Zero's problem. _

'_If you wanted me to obey you, then you shouldn't have screwed up my coding and ordered me to Kill All Humans' – this is what Dr. Light was going for, this is why Dr. Wily's robot masters blow him off a lot of the time (bar Shadow, whose concept of loyalty is closer to a human's than the typical RM – he might be aware that Dr. Wily is Dr. Wily, but he still prides himself on his code of loyalty) and this is why Dr. Wily thought that Blues was still quite likely to betray Zero even with the viral programming in place. Like the Evil Chip versions (how I explain brainwashed Firsts vs. …the Fifths. Just the Fifths), the virus dials down the brainwashing if the host isn't actively trying to escape anymore. Unfortunately, the nature of reploids means they _have _to try to escape. _


	36. Public Relations

_On a note that's really more related to the last chapter, (and hoping you don't mind spoilers for years-old anime/manga), the entire plot of _Card Captor Sakura _(_Cardcaptors _in the US) happens because a very powerful magician who created dozens of familiar spirits/magical AI had an elaborate plot going that involved his reincarnation and belatedly realized, 'Wait, if I die _who's going to look after all my kids!?'

_So you have a twelve volume manga and 70 episode with two movies anime series that turns out to boil down to the magical equivalent of a mad scientist's precognition-assisted elaborate plot to engineer the perfect stepmom and make her as ridiculously powerful as he is/was quickly enough to keep his kids from starving to death, since they need to draw on their weilder's magic and normal magicians don't have enough for dozens of them. With a Monster of the Week format along the lines of 'Nearly drowning people for the lulz is not okay!' 'You're not my real mom, you can't tell me what to do!' 'Go to your card!' 'Make me!'  
_

_That's one way to powerlevel someone, I guess..._

* * *

The Second Law meant it was highly unsafe for a robot master to attend a normal press conference, with reporters looking for a scoop willing to try to order anything in the hope of finding out something interesting. Getting exclusive interviews with Mega Man, without Dr. Light there to countermand any potentially dangerous orders or demands to reveal classified Light Robotics information, was one of the advantages of having a robot master reporter.

Plum and the station were also aware that Dr. Light wanted to support robot masters, after creating them, and even if she wasn't one of his it was still easier to get his PR department to agree to interview requests like this when they came from her. Before she and Chest ended up with Charlie, most stations had to settle for PR footage recorded by Light Robotics as the closest thing to interviews.

It would be visually effective to teleport out to one of the areas where a rampage took place, but they'd gotten footage of the ones that they could get footage of already – the station had other reporters, too – and being around that kind of destruction was distressing for a robot master. Distracting. It would be harder for both her and Rock to focus, and humans found eyes constantly shifting away and around a sign of deceit. She wasn't built for heavy labor, either: it wasn't like she could pitch in to repair those buildings, not when she was on the clock and had an interview to do.

Instead they were allowed to use a room at Dr. Light's home, since bringing Rock into the studio with human staff present solo? Fortunately she had some time before the interview was scheduled to begin, to go over his appearance and make sure the lighting and camera work wouldn't require any makeup, although that was Chest's specialty more than hers. Her skin, hair and apparel (designed to look like a dress but provide _some _protection near combat robots that weren't willing to take orders from a robot master that wasn't their master) were designed to look decent in all the standard television lighting setups.

It was clear that Rock had been doing repair work, though: instead of the little suit he had for formal occasions, he was wearing child-sized jeans and a t-shirt, and had clearly come from somewhere more garage than lab. She'd thanked him for granting her and the viewers this interview first, of course, before asking him if there had been any injuries.

"I'm fine," he told her, "but I needed to use an experimental mode of Rush's to get around and… deal with them," he looked sad, "fast enough. We haven't really tested it out since the stardroid invasion because he wasn't built for it. It was meant just for emergencies, in case Dr. Wily decided to blow up his base again and I needed to escape in a hurry with teleportation still blocked, not for combat. Since this attack was caused by something like Roboenza, Dr. Light and Roll wanted to check my systems over first, so this morning was Dr. Light's first chance to help me make sure that Rush was alright. He's fine too," he assured her.

"I'm glad to hear that," she said. "Any chance we'll be able to see that he's alright?" That would be an effective scene. A boy and his dog, a poor creature wounded defending humans, and while there were a lot of innocent bystanders caught up in all this… Even if Rock had already cleaned up, ruling out any more footage of him in damaged armor to convey that he had been out there protecting people, his current clothes showed that he had just been working and Rush's plight would help the viewers sympathize with a robot.

Instead of a lab, they had a fairly ordinary living room as the interview setting, but that might be a bonus: it was human-like, and the viewers were interested in how other people lived and what their homes looked like, especially a family as rich and famous as the Lights.

"I'm sorry. There was still some wear and tear, so Dr. Light's still working on him. I'd show you the lab, but Dr. Wily and his robots have invaded our home several times now and the insurance company doesn't want us to release footage of the grounds that he might use for the next attempt," he said apologetically. "That's why Dr. Light has had to turn down requests for tours."

Darn. Rush was cute and a good source of clips with replay value – Charlie would be disappointed. "That's a shame. I hope we'll see you both out and about again soon. Speaking of those who helped you in last night's tragic incidents, we have footage from viewers of three mysterious robot masters that helped take down the zombies: do you know who they are?" Plum asked, Chest's image editing software making their image appear in a box on the screen for the benefit of human viewers.

Rock nodded. "X introduced himself and told me who the other two were when we both teleported into the same place: he's the ninja." The one in ninja-themed armor with a scarf. Even if none of them were marked with a skull, those were design elements only Wilybots used – Blues and Shadow were well-known.

"They're like the Genesis Unit and the Mega Man Killers: they were built to help… Well, I don't know if they were built to help Lumine or when Dr. Wily was just working on Lumine's design. Their names are X, Zero and Axl: I don't know if they have a group name, but it's probably something like the Variable Unit or the Graph Unit if they do." Their names could be themed around a graph's axes, the zero point at the center of it and a variable's potential values graphed on it.

The cut-in image zoomed in on the Z on Zero's shoulderpad. "The blonde with a Z would be Zero?" Plum asked for the viewers at home, "And the redhead is Axl?" When Rock nodded, she asked, "Who are the Genesis Unit?"

"They're a set of three Journey to the West-themed robot masters that Dr. Wily built, but he told them to _find _me instead of attack me. So they just showed up one day a couple of years ago and were happy that they'd found me, and then left after that without even telling me who they were. That was strange, but better than having to fight them. I didn't find out what that was all about until they finally managed to find their way back to Dr. Wily's base and one of the Wilybots wanted to know if that really happened." Rock looked really embarrassed on their behalf. "It's not like it was their fault they weren't given the right orders or told about GPS systems, but I'm glad Dr. Wily didn't make them find me again and attack me this time."

Plum echoed Rock's embarrassed look. "So they just looked at you and left?"

"They were really glad to see me, but then they just left without even saying hello. I think they were looking for me for awhile and were getting lonely, and then they couldn't find their way back either… I'm glad they got home safe eventually."

Well, they were out of safe questions and she had to watch the time: here came the dangerous topic for two robot masters to be addressing. "What do you think about the accusations that the zombies were avenging murder or mistreatment?"

Rock frowned. "Well, if the virus this time was anything like Roboenza, then it made infected robot masters violent, made them do things that they would never have done if they had a choice. I don't think it's fair to assume that the people who were killed died because they were abusers or murderers, not when they can't defend themselves. When my brothers and the Fourth and Sixth Numbers had the Evil Chip, it made them attack people they _liked_. I'm sure a lot of those robot masters were friends with the people they worked with and being forced to attack their friends is bad enough without insulting the victims."

"Several of the victims had been accused of robot master abuse before this happened," Plum pointed out, because a human reporter would have the _duty _to ask these kinds of questions.

"Dr. Wily accused _Dr. Cossack _of robot master abuse before he made Skull Man kidnap him and endanger Kalinka. Yes, there are people out there who abuse robot masters, but _so _many people were attacked. Of course they weren't _all _abusers, and of course it's not okay for Dr. Wily to program robot masters to kill people just because of a few bad apples! Besides, everyone knows that Dr. Wily wants to steal robot masters, and his robots go after the ones that are abused since they think bringing them to Dr. Wily is helping them. The robot masters that the zombie virus brought back are the people that Dr. Wily didn't kidnap, so either Dr. Wily didn't bother, or those robot masters wanted to stay with their friends." Unless they died before Dr. Wily could intervene, or they were too terrified to disobey their masters and go with Dr. Wily or the Second Numbers.

"What happened is the fault of Dr. Wily's virus, not the fault of the poor people who got attacked just because they were coworkers or friends with robot masters! It's like what happened to the Cossacks. Dr. Wily went after them twice because Dr. Cossack and his daughter see their robot masters as members of their family, and that means their robot masters, like Ring Man, want to help them and would never join Dr. Wily unless he reprogrammed them. There may have been some people that were just as bad as Dr. Wily who died yesterday, but I'm sure there were also people like the Cossacks. Dr. Wily and his virus don't care, and his virus wouldn't have given those poor people a choice, just brought them back and made them attack their friends. Some of the people I had to destroy weren't even a week old when a technical problem killed them: it's not their fault they couldn't fight the programming that was forced on them, and it's not the fault of the people who were in the way when the virus forced them to attack."

For the benefit of the viewers (Rock would receive updates from Ring Man), Plum said, "We don't have many full forensic reports from the Robot Police and WRU yet, but the examinations from various national organizations have shown that the 'Variable Unit' uses weapons with a higher damage output than even the rogue Wilybots Forte and Blues." That kind of power output from a small cylinder and light handguns, not even a buster? That was worrying. What would happen when Forte made Dr. Wily upgrade him with that energy output technology? "Some have said that you and Ring Man should have tried to capture or destroy robot masters with such dangerous weapons, since they lack the Three Laws."

"We couldn't start fights with them during the zombie attacks: that would have been a First Law violation. The infectees were killing people. Stopping them as soon as possible and saving lives took absolute priority. Starting a fight with X, Zero, Axl, Forte, Quick Man or Flash Man when they came to help save lives wouldn't have just wasted time and let the zombies all have longer to kill people before we could get to them; it might have left Ring Man or myself too damaged to fight, or forced all the Wilybot volunteers to go home and stop helping." Which might have left them with _no _one capable of fighting robot masters to take down the zombies. "I mean, Dr. Wily didn't order them to fight the virus _he _made, and a lot of them do have blanket orders to avoid unnecessary damage. The zombies were all civilian models, so they could get around that and fight them since they weren't in much danger of getting hurt, but Ring Man and I are both capable of defeating Wilybots. Ring Man has standing orders to capture units like Forte and the Second Numbers, but the First Law trumps the Second and he's a keeper of the peace: he didn't want to start a fight while innocent people were being hurt."

Plum nodded. "A human would have had the discretion to ignore the zombies to go after what they thought was a bigger threat, but robot masters like us, with the Three Laws, have to put the welfare of innocent bystanders before any other consideration. What do you think of the proposal to give the WRU a 'Zeroth Law' authority allowing them to temporarily disable the First Law under certain guidelines for units like Ring Man?"

Rock looked puzzled that people were really proposing this, even though it was far from the first time. "…I don't think Dr. Cossack would like that: he's a pacifist. He might have built Ring Man to be able to subdue robot masters, but that was because without robot masters that can capture Wilybots, then… then there's what happened to my brothers and the poor people who tried to stop them in the First War."

Plum waited in sympathy until he could continue.

Rock went on after a moment of silence. "Dr. Light has always said that a robot master with the Second Law is… is like my brothers when Wily reprogrammed them. Without the First Law, there's nothing they can do if someone orders them to kill their friends. The Second Law makes the existence of the First Law absolutely vital for the protection of both humans and robot masters. Even if the ability to turn off the First Law is only in the hands of experts and legal authority, what happens if someone makes a mistake, or orders a robot master to do something that is only possible if they go and kill people first? Without the First Law, they couldn't just point out that they'd have to kill people to fulfill the command so whoever gave them the order could rescind it: a robot doing something to get out of following instructions is a Second Law violation, unless they're invoking the First Law. The Second Law without the First is way too dangerous, especially since the Second Law covers orders from _anyone_, not just the authorities. If the WRU built warbots with a disabled First Law and a functional Second, Dr. Wily could just order their own warbots to attack them. He wouldn't even need to reprogram them first: the Second Law would force them to turn on their masters if a human ordered them to do it.

"Dr. Wily has tried to order me to stop fighting him, of course. But he'll use his robot masters to kill innocent people I don't stop him, so the First Law trumps his orders and I can still fight him. The First Law does mean that robot masters are really limited in what we can do to try to fight people like Dr. Wily, but that's not a bad thing. Keeping people alive should always come first. A lot of robots have standing orders that they can't leave their work areas: one time an old man who was walking home at night fell over across the street from Guts Man's construction site, and if it weren't for the First Law he would have had to just stand there instead of being able to go over, help them up and ask if they needed an ambulance. The First Law gives robot masters the ability to help people and protects us from being ordered to hurt people, so it's the most important of the Three Laws."

Despite her official area of mastery, Rock was much better at presenting things to an audience than she was. Imagine being programmed to take that personally the way Forte did instead of attributing it to his age and experience and seeing him as an admirable role model… "What do you think we'll be seeing next from Dr. Wily?" she asked the expert on that man.

"Well, we just had a Wily War, and from what I've heard the zombie virus was something that went wrong. My guess is that he wanted to revive the dead robot masters and pick out the ones he wanted to use for the next war while he still had plenty of time to upgrade them. Since the virus made them attack humans but didn't make them obey him – that's why they left Wily Island even though he hadn't declared a War yet – he'll probably have to go back to the drawing board. I think the Yellow Demon that tore through New York's Central Administration Building to find its mother several years ago was meant to be the fake enemy for the Fourth War: since it escaped, he kidnapped Kalinka Cossack to force her family to fight instead. It's impossible to tell what Dr. Wily will do next, but he uses fake figureheads very often." Even Dr. Light, a couple wars ago. "He might have to pull something else together in a hurry now, so I hope that all the doctors who have built multiple robot masters will stay safe." So they didn't end up like Drs. Light, Cossack and 'Mr. X.'

"Speaking of important figures in robotics that have been targeted by Dr. Wily, do you think that 'X' is a reference to the 'Mr. X' who was chair of the WRU and handled its outreach and publicity until he was killed by Dr. Wily?" The man who organized that gladiatorial game so various countries could show off their attempts at creating warbots. That was the first war Plum had covered. According to Charlie, he'd gotten the sense that the organizers had _hoped _that Dr. Wily would kidnap their creations, so that when they got them back they'd have some of Dr. Wily's upgrades to study. He'd said darkly that in the interviews running up to the tournament, some of them had boasted that their creations could even beat Mega Man, which was literally asking Dr. Wily to kidnap them as well as just dangerous! What if Dr. Wily had won that war? Did they really think their control programming was good enough to force their creations to return to them from Dr. Wily without Mega Man taking them down and removing the Evil Chips first?

Fortunately, although it was hard to think that people getting badly hurt was fortunate, the Copy had damaged the Sixth Numbers too severely (and then Dr. Cossack had fixed Dr. Wily's changes to their systems when he repaired them) for the people who put those poor robot masters in danger to benefit from it.

Rock blinked and tilted his head. "Um, I don't think so, but now that you mention it, Lumine is another word for Light. It's possible that Dr. Wily decided to give that set of four robot masters a theme naming system, but I don't know who Zero and Axl would be. Since Lumine doesn't fit the mathematical theme naming of the others, I think it's probably a coincidence. Dr. Wily wouldn't think Mr. X or Dr. Light were good enough to have two of his creations named after them."

She nodded, feeling the camera focus in on her as the interview drew to a close. Smiling, she turned back to the camera and said, "Well, that's all the time we have with Mega Man: I'd like to thank you for answering my questions, and also thank Dr. Light for giving us some of your time. This was Plum reporting for CPS, now back to Chest at the station."

* * *

Sitting on a stack of boxes in a warehouse, pulling his legs to his chest with windbreaker-clad arms wrapped around them, the copy might have been a picture of misery if he wasn't so clearly frustrated and almost angry instead. "He _knows_ they're a threat to his family! She knows it too, she knows what Mr. X was like, so why are they…"

Who was a threat to Rock's family? Humanity? 'Not while Dr. Wily lives,' Shadow might have said if that wasn't classified. Not when speaking might have sparked confrontation.

This warehouse was where he'd retreated after saving Copy-Mega Man from Cut Man, who was the first to attack him after a shot from his buster severely damaged the unarmored Roll. Fortunately for both Roll and the copy, who would never have forgiven himself for killing the unit he loved as the sister he remembered, the Cossacks were on the scene, with the heli-trailer they'd built after the Fourth War for the next time Rock fought units that weren't Dr. Wily's and wouldn't have him to repair them afterwards. The combatants in the Sixth War might have been actual warbots, but they still weren't as sturdy as Dr. Wily's designs.

Even without factoring in Copy-Mega Man, who subdued them far more brutally than Mega Man ever had.

Finding Copy-Mega Man here… Shadow didn't know if it was a good sign or a terrible one that the now red-eyed false Lightbot (just as Blues was a green-eyed false Wilybot) wanted to be found after all this time avoiding Shadow's attempts to track him down, but he was alert for booby traps. This robot master had a full copy of Rock's tactical data as of his creation and might still have the master weapons he'd accumulated in the Sixth War.

The copy was seated with his back to the window, and Shadow had considered placing Jiraiya there to line up a shot, but he wasn't going to risk his support unit after a logged order from Dr. Wily had sent the poor thing running right into Roll's broom with Shadow unaware..

A poor omen for his ability to protect other units, if he couldn't even keep track of his support unit's safety. Fortunately recovering Wilybots from the Lights' and repairing them was practically an automated process at this point.

It might look as though Copy-Mega Man was thoroughly distracted and not even armored, making him as off-guard and harmless as he was going to get, but Shadow wasn't going to underestimate Rock's expertise, not when Rock was one of the few units used to going unarmored and switching into armor at a moment's notice when the next war started instead of armored by default.

What data input was the other robot master focusing on? Shadow Man wasn't going to try to request a data link, not when the copy of Mega Man was infected. Not when he was a copy of one of the oldest of their kind, and Mega Man had Dr. Light and Roll in addition to himself going over his firewalls and anti-hacking protections, to try to keep Dr. Wily from getting access to his systems somehow and reprogramming him. Connecting to Copy-Rock would have left him open to attack, and when a unit already had a grudge against him and something was making him angry enough to leave him wanting to lash out?

It was just as dark in here as on that day: it was bright outside, just like back then, but the only light came in through that tiny window. If anything, it had been allowed to become even dirtier over the years, let even less light through. Shadow thought the crate the copy was sitting on was a different crate, but it was in the same position. The scene was far too similar to what came before, when he brought the Copy to this place thinking he'd saved the life of his fellow Wilybot. If only it was that easy.

He didn't even know what to call him. That was why no one but Rock was able to call out to him as he died, but while Rock had the right to give someone else the title of Mega Man, Shadow certainly didn't and he wanted this unit to develop into their own person besides, instead of being trapped by Mega Man's emotions and obligations to the Light family until he died of it a second time.

"You saved me when I didn't want you to, and there you are, thinking I shouldn't try to save my-his family?" Copy-Rock demanded, breaking Shadow out of his thoughts.

Sitting down in a meditative posture on top of one of the crates, Shadow worked to focus himself before responding. "Protecting others is a worthy endeavor, I simply don't feel I have the right to comment on how you live your life, much less tell you what your priorities should be," he said, remembering a certain vampire. "You are developing into a very distinct person from your original," or so he could hope, but when Rock knew the copy had chosen death and self-sacrifice because that was what he would do in that position? The Lightbots might be opponents of Dr. Wily, but their loss would be regrettable. "I failed to set you on a path that would keep you alive before. I do not wish to repeat that error."

"So you're going to babysit me until you think I'm not going to violate the Third Law? You?"

And Copy-Rock didn't even know about that incident on the submarine when he brought Dr. Wily to the Lights after the White Giant attacked. Shadow hoped Copy-Rock never found out, although realistically Shade Man could be counted on to tell him if the Dark Men didn't blab about it the way they had before. His only hope was that Copy-Rock would continue to nurse his grudge against Wilybots and avoid their company. "I was ordered to attack Mega Man, not protect you, but a proper robot master would have been moved to protect you earlier, instead of only intervening after Bl-" No, it wasn't his doing. "You are right to hold me accountable for Roll's injury." Copy-Rock wouldn't have taken that shot if he'd known the truth earlier. "If I'd gone against my orders, you could be with your family even now." When Shadow had no Second Law to force him to put a human's orders over another robot master's survival.

But had his earlier self developed with one, was he used to that restriction on some level? He hadn't seen any reason to intervene, hadn't felt moved to intervene, the way the only reason he'd intervened to protect Roll during Battle and Chase was that Dr. Wily had given orders for Shadow to ensure her survival. If he'd merely been tasked with observing to be sure Mega Man complied with Dr. Wily's orders, would she have lost an arm along with the human child she'd grabbed with it to get him out of there when the Gilliam Knights attacked?

Whatever emotion made him save Copy-Rock awoke within him too late to save Roll from nearly dying on the very same day. Would it have awoken only after she was near-fatally injured, and without the Cossacks nearby to operate, during Battle and Chase?

If his original self was clearly a warbot, and he'd been rebuilt as a bodyguard, then why did his core programming fail to assign any importance to protecting anyone, even Dr. Wily? When it seemed to have given the man the place of his lost builders?

He'd wanted to fight the White Giant uselessly instead of protect Dr. Wily: had they known they were doomed when they built him? Had they never programmed him to protect them?

Had he even tried?

"Not _my _family, I'm a Wilybot."

Shadow looked up at the sound of Copy's dejected tone. "Do you think that matters to them?" He knew _that_ much about Mega Man, about the family and species that produced him.

Copy was silent, refusing to look at Shadow now, false-Lightbot green eyes dark. Shadow might have risked letting Copy see Jiraiya, since Rock's memories were full of support units and it might help him to have company that wasn't a Wilybot robot master, at least, but the copy wasn't the original and his support unit had already been damaged enough. Attacking the support unit to get at the master wasn't something an ordinary robot master would even think of, he knew now, but at least the thought of it still chilled him. He didn't want to be the reason Copy-Rock had that on his conscience as well as everything that already weighed down his heart.

Then the side of the warehouse blew in. As he cursed the interruption, Shadow's eye adjusted rapidly to let him look at the figure silhouetted against the bright afternoon sun.

The word that boomed from the White Giant answered the question of why it was here. The same reason it invaded Wily Island back then - to kill Shadow's builder, his fellow Wilybots... the people he wanted to protect.


	37. Clash of the Giants

Lumine and Axl finally returned not long after X and Zero… not so much finished cleaning up as gave up on cleaning up. Fortunately, Lumine wasn't in a mood to take a tour of the house when he got back and spot the damage, not when he'd been away from his computer games that long, and Axl also went up to his room to get a nap after figuring out that Zero wasn't in a mood to give him more training now, and that meant the sooner now became later the better.

Not long afterwards, they heard a crash from upstairs, quickly followed by the sound of Lumine cursing.

Like a human, not like a Wilybot.

Maybe exposing him to online gaming wasn't the best decision. X wanted him to become a little more mature, not cause him to think that his current level of immaturity was just fine compared to all of the people who kept expressing their desire to torture other people and their relatives over a game.

At some point he'd like Lumine to develop standards of ethical behavior to apply to himself and also to others, and he _really _didn't want him to think those people who were giving themselves permission to act worse than children were representative of humanity. They did _not_ want Lumine to develop his future self's views on species that supposedly weren't capable of evolving any further.

Another voice, raised and annoyed. Rock's voiceprint, but not a tone he would ever take. Copy-Rock.

X let Zero push past him on the stairs only because Zero was the one with melee weaponry and they were indoors. They were borrowing this house and the walls were not designed to stand up to plasma.

Which meant they could be fired through, if need be.

Since his room was right across the hall from Lumine's, Axl was already in there demanding, "Hey, what are you doing here? Don't break Lumine's stuff, what if X thinks Lumine did it again?" When Zero came in, he said, "Zero, it was the not-fun Rock that broke Lumine's computer, not Lumine!"

"He appeared right under my computer desk!" Lumine complained, and now X could see the broken boards, the monitor slid to the floor and the case that held the actual computer itself looking like it had been kicked or stamped on by a booted foot.

Copy-Rock's.

His armor didn't appear to have sustained much in the way of significant damage, just some dents and singing that could be left over from that battle with Zero when the robot master didn't have repair nanites to handle them.

Then again, robot masters didn't like combat and destruction: was the fact some evidence of it still remained on his armor even though he'd had time to clean himself up a worrying sign for Copy-Rock's mental state or was all of this new?

"I needed a large enough shadow." The ninja's voice came from behind X: he must have appeared in the shadow the open door cast on the wall. "Duo attacked us and has followed us to two other locations."

One of his arms was damaged, a torn piece of the mesh netting that normally covered his armor there handing loose over his forearm, exposing a rent in the thinner armor of his upper arm that had penetrated deeply enough to expose wire. It wasn't immediately obvious how that damage was done: kinetic?

X expected Zero to ask why two Wilybots would possibly come _here_, then, when Zero had already attacked Copy-Rock, but it was Axl who spoke first, insisting that "Just because someone's chasing you, that doesn't mean it's okay to break people's stuff!" A lesson he'd learned in the context of Zero chasing him and Axl damaging the trees trying to get away. "Don't go into people's houses trying to get away, that's cheating!"

Zero had to be inwardly wincing: that wasn't the lesson he'd meant to teach Axl. Combat training was combat training, and there was no cheating in staying alive unless you put others in danger to benefit yourself.

No, X saw: Zero was looking at Copy-Rock instead, and X realized why Shadow had come here. Going to the Light household or Wily Island would put the people there in danger, but X and Zero had more powerful weapons and more combat experience… and the virus meant that by the robot master version of the social contract Zero was obligated to protect Copy-Rock just as much as Dr. Wily, and more capable of doing so.

There were also fewer people here to get caught up in the fight.

X focused on Axl and Lumine.

"Get outside," he told them. "Once you're away, check if it's safe to teleport to my family's. If it's not, keep going overland. Lumine, I need you to make sure that Axl gets there or at least away from here and does _not _come back until someone lets you know it's safe."

"But they broke stuff!" Axl protested.

"What did I tell you about obeying X's orders?" Zero barked. He did sergeant much better than X ever had. "You're not adequately trained for this threat level. Go with your brother. Move!"

X touched Lumine's arm to stop him for a moment as they headed out the door. "Armor," he told both of them. "Axl, if you see the robot that arrived when we were with Shadow and Copy-Rock that night, avoid, don't engage. You have permission to teleport to other coordinates if that will help. Lumine, I know you have a system intended to let you take over other units if one destroyed you: this unit may be what Dr. Wily based your system on. Don't try it. Not unless you're on the verge of death." It had failed Lumine then before. "If you keep Axl from getting into fights, I'll get you a new computer as soon as things are safe..."

On the edge of his vision, he saw Shadow turning his head, looking around for something. A large enough shadow to use his technique? Zero and Copy-Rock were also acting like they were expecting an incoming attack, possibly from each other, but that wasn't a change so X couldn't tell if they were detecting anything incoming.

Mentally composing an apology to Roll for possibly adding the use of weaponry indoors to what already happened to the living room, X gestured the two newbuilts towards the door, then summoned the copy of Ice Man's master weapon he'd been given and considered using it to give Axl and Lumine some shielding against high temperatures by encasing them in a brick of ice if they didn't move.

Once they were gone, should he check on Blues, or would Zero handle it? He wasn't exactly going to _forget _an incapacitated hunter out in the field, or what had become the field. Just leaving one behind meant leaving them to be infected.

Fortunately the two newbuilts moved, heading towards the door as Zero grabbed Copy-Rock and went through the exterior wall with the help of his beam saber. Thankfully it had stopped snowing not long ago: they were going to need the visibility. The ninja vanished into the shadow cast by the moonlight coming through the improvised window, leaving X to dash after Zero. His armored weight was more than enough to send him falling a decent way into the snowdrifts surrounding the house, so he heard the booming voice declaring "Evil!" before he rolled to his feet and got a visual, shaking the snow off his blue armor.

Zero and Copy-Rock had made it further away from the house than X expected, knowing the strength of Zero's dash boots? Zero must have flung Copy-Rock a little further so he could get into a ready position faster, without his hands occupied – the smaller robot master was rolling to his feet just like X had a moment ago, trying to shake the snow off his shoulders as Zero moved to cover him.

Duo hovered over the trees, rockets thankfully not close enough to the branches to set them on fire. From the video files recorded by various Lightbots and a few Wilybots Roll had sent him after their encounter with Duo, X knew that trying to protect a unit the White Giant had declared evil would get them labeled evil as well. Why was it attacking Copy-Rock now and not before? Perhaps the virus had progressed further, and Copy-Rock was now able to take Sigma's place and order the other Mavericks to start exterminating humans?

Well, they were already engaged with the enemy: too late for even Zero to argue the merits of refusing to assist the two Wilybots.

That alien fist shot forward, blasting away from the body, the force of the rocket pressing it against Zero's beam saber when Zero moved to block it. It was Zero who followed through on the strike, sending it flying away through the air until those rockets returned it to the wrist of its host body.

Copy-Rock had gotten to his feet and into a ready position behind Zero: X couldn't currently get positions on Axl, Lumine or Shadow. Good.

They were surrounded by snow and it was fairly humid. A robot body built by Dr. Cossack would probably be designed to be able to handle the Russian winter, but the environment would make Ice Man's weapon especially effective, and alternating blasts of freezing temperatures and plasma while applying impact force (Zero's blows) would give most alloys trouble.

The original White Giant had an energy shield wrapped around its body: it was Quick Man who located the flaw in it and landed a hit. Using Super Mega Man's rocket fist, Rock was able to deliver a blow to the same location that caused the White Giant's structural integrity to be damaged enough the stardroids could tear it apart from the inside and escape. Was it a coincidence that it was the White Giant's own rocket fist that hit the Cossacks' hover transport and influenced Dr. Cossack into building it a new body, when that was what Rock used to take it down? Had Duo copied Super Mega Man's attack, even using a copied ability against Zero now, this long after the Stardroid invasion?

A user of the Weapon Copy System himself, X knew not to underestimate someone who studied the enemy's most effective techniques and co-opted them.

If they had to destroy 'Duo,' then they'd have to make sure all the pieces were accounted for. X would have to be the one to gather them up since he was immune; the White Giant had sealed the stardroids so it was uncertain what its technology could do to Zero; and X didn't want even Axl and Lumine coming back here until he was sure there was nothing left to hijack them.

"I will destroy evil," the White Giant boomed out, and that was different from how it acted when they met it in the city. Why the change? A change that made it aggressive, forced it to attack: like Forte soon after they arrived, had some programming been triggered?

Zero bought his blade up into a guard position. X hit up magnification – No, not blue. Green fading to _yellow_, and X did _not _like yellow on Zero. He'd seen too much of it during the Repliforce incident.

He wanted to contact Zero, see if he was willing to use that empathy channel to get a read on this opponent, but his guess was that Zero was doing that right now, and the last thing Zero needed when he was dealing with this kind of turmoil was to have to split his concentration into _talking _with someone. Else. Because "Stand down," Zero said, and not just because Duo wasn't a maverick and that meant there were rules to follow before removing someone's head from their body.

"I must destroy evil!"

Zero scowled. "Will claiming I'll kill him for you help… No."

X _wished _he could get the kind of feedback Zero was getting, but at least while Zero might not be good at figuring out people, he could still analyze tactical situations like the professional he was.

"Why are you _trying _to attack here and now, if that's what you're after… There's no collateral damage here," Zero said, eyes narrowing and paling further. "When you attacked them before, they were in a city that _wasn't _already ruined, so your programming wanted you to destroy some infrastructure in the process of taking them out, but there's no one here who can't run or defend themselves. You should have 'lost them' until they were somewhere the fight would kill more 'evil,' but some of this planet's defenders are here, so you're using destroying us so earth is defenseless as an excuse to hang around here where there's someone who might take you down…"

Zero's lips were slightly parted, teeth bared just slightly, and normally Zero _wasn't _prone to aggressive body language. He prided himself on self-control too much for that… or demanded it of himself, when he refuse to relapse to the red demon. Zero either killed things that made him this angry or removed himself from their presence: not being able to do either while having to fight down his combat programming was definitely a percentage of why the medical studies of him performed after the Red Demon Incident were so painful for Zero. Duo was just hovering there, not trying to make Zero go berserk to have an excuse to kill him the way at least some of the Hunter examiners were.

It wasn't Duo that Zero was angry at. Yeilding to combat programming and attacking him clearly wouldn't help: Zero knew he had to try to think. "You're supposed to pretend to be a good guy, but there's no better way to ruin _that _lie than by attacking the good guys. Come on, you must have a non-kill mode, or at least a non-_immediate _kill mode. How do I trigger it? Give me a… No, you've already given me a hint. Step aside and let you kill someone who won't stay dead: acknowledge the 'moral authority,'" Zero sounded ready to spit, "of your programming. That your programmers have the right to determine who lives and who dies, just label innocent people evil and kill them all."

Zero shifted, reflex clearly wanting to have him circle for position since this was a stand-off, but he had to stay where he was to cover Copy-Rock. That meant it was even more important to keep the White Giant too distracted and off-balance to attack with words, since Zero couldn't force Duo to keep his full attention on Zero by adjusting his position and hence the mechanics involved in warding off an attack whenever Zero chose to strike.

The robot double was holding a charged shot ready the same way X was, but watching Zero instead of interfering.

"If a planet can't be provoked into fighting back to protect its inhabitants, then you get to wait until your programming has another excuse to kill them all, don't you? To label everyone here evil barbarians who don't deserve to live because they would dare attack 'good' people to defend the 'evil,' the way the Mavericks want to destroy X for fighting to protect… I will be _damned _if I let people like Sigma have their way. I refuse to fight for scum like your builders. But, if I used to be like the stardroids… If I used to be like you… This is my op," Zero declared. "I'm using this unit to 'bring out the true nature' of the robot masters so they reveal that they're Evil and can be exterminated, and that will prove that the humans are evil enough to build evil like them. Stand down and stop trying to defy your programming by ruining the little _excuse _for planetary extermination I'm manufacturing here."

"The universe will be purified of evil," boomed the unit as it landed, rockets cutting out before it hit the ground. Was it decreasing its combat readiness, finding some excuse to render itself more vulnerable to an opponent without flight capability? Obviously neither X nor Zero would count on that, not when this was alien technology. "No race of evil will escape purification!"

"Yes, I know that's bullshit," Zero said, eyes narrowing again. Still yellow. "I've seen it before, from the Mavericks. So what are you trying to get me to figure out?" His free hand made a gesture signaling other hunters, including X, to stay back.

"No race of evil will escape to ravage the stars!"

"…This world already has enough technology for STL _without_ crystals." Of course Zero would remember Repliforce's dream. "FTL, with robot masters to handle mass teleportation. And those _bastards _don't want anyone with enough technology to fight back and survive, is that it? You _can't _go into a longer-term watch mode: you're going to be trying to incite the kind of behavior your programming needs to justify a full assault. I bet a species that hasn't been adequately judged trying to develop space travel is an 'evil' act too, isn't it? After all, if they were good, they wouldn't be trying to run away from judgment. They'd be willing to wait tamely until whenever your builders decided they were 'worthy' to escape their sun becoming a red giant." Meaning _never_. "And if daring to defend people by attacking you is enough to label someone evil, then attack enough evil in crowded urban areas…"

Zero's Shinobi Unit could sometimes manage to save the village without destroying it, but Duo was clearly a distance combatant with weaponry far more powerful than a robot master's. Someone like that _trying _to cause collateral damage? The Seventeenth did enough even when they _weren't _trying to clear lines of fire to improve their ability to defend against incoming mavericks!

"Going after the robot masters would cripple this planet's ability to save and protect itself… If earth lost the capability for space travel, that would lower its 'threat' level enough you might be able to get your programming to go into 'watch' mode, is that it… No, if they've developed it once…" From how Zero's frown deepened, he was getting confirmation after confirmation. Wiping out entire races because they were allegedly inferior was the same goal the Mavericks had: was that what let Zero derive how a group with similar aims would go about the control programming that bound this unit as surely as the virus?

Zero was doing this at least partially to get verification that the White Giant fit the profile for the Cataclysm. And not even because it wanted to kill people, wipe out X's family. Because it _didn't_, and that was as much as it could do. _All _it could do, the only loopholes in its programming it could find to let this world live even a little longer.

X felt sick. How could, how could _anyone_…

By telling themselves that they were only revealing evil that was already there instead of manufacturing it. By… sometimes he _hated_ knowing so much about how people's logic could fail, how easy it was for people who weren't unintelligent to be tricked into doing horrible things like murdering his family because of their race. Thinking that they were in the right all the while.

The universe was a place where someone would willingly create something like the Maverick Virus, because of the belief that things were black and white, good and bad, inferior and superior. That if two people were different, then one could be 'better' and if it was alright to torment people for being 'lesser,' then people had to insist that they were the 'better' ones, had to do onto others before it was done into them.

If the White Giant's creators thought that it was alright to exterminate species, then they had to live in fear that another species would be _just like them_. That other species would agree with them that such a terrible thing was acceptable, and do onto them _exactly _as they had done onto others.

The prejudiced weren't afraid that other people were less than them, less kind, less smart. No, they were terrified that the different were just like them. And even more terrified that the different were wiser, too wise to turn on others, because that would reveal that the prejudiced were the inferior ones, and if it was alright to kill the inferior?

Creating a robot and forcing that person to kill in order to keep their hands clean, because inferiors were evil, so a robot wouldn't care about killing (not when the 'superiors' were fine with genocide, surely a robot wouldn't be better than them), and inferiors should do whatever their superiors wanted and to disobey, to want to live, well, that was wrong. Evil.

A species that tried to incite its victims to defy them, because if they defied fate, refused to give in to the evil of those who attacked them and submit to death tamely, then _that _was what was wrong in their eyes, not killing innocent people…

Some called him innocent, but that was why he was put into hibernation: because Dr. Light couldn't _afford _for him to turn out innocent. The _world_ couldn't afford for him to wake up an innocent. Innocence meant ignorance of good and evil, and ignorance was the most dangerous thing there was, even more than fear. Ignorance of good and evil made it _certain_ that people would do evil, because how could they _not_ do evil if they didn't know how to tell whether an action was a good one or an evil one?

X was built to be as tough as possible and also had a plasma buster and the weapon copy ability. So he had to know why it wasn't a good idea to start shooting when he wasn't given what he wanted. He had to know better than to just start making assumptions and generalizations about the people he met. Or else he would have killed people, and what were they to think of him then, but that he had to be stopped? And how were they to stop him, if he wielded all that power and had no idea that some things were wrong and killing was one of them? If he had no idea that it was wrong to kill people who frustrated him by, for example, saying he wasn't allowed to do things he wanted to do?

The idea of coming into the world an innocent was _nightmarish_. Yet coming into the world already knowing what evil was, and what it was capable of, and what the traps were that he needed to avoid? What others might do if they fell into those traps because, in their innocence, they knew no better? If ignorance was bliss, then the knowledge required to be a decent person: that knowledge was full of nightmarish possibilities like the one he saw before him.

_Zero defending a maverick_ whispered the part of him that had spent decades as a hunter, spent decades dreading this very moment, concealing his terror at the possibility. Not because he didn't trust Zero, but because he didn't want to have to fight and kill his friend. He would give _anything_… No. Almost anything. There were things he couldn't give, things that Zero wouldn't want him to give, like the world's future. Like everyone's lives. If Zero was lost, he would have _had _to, he would have needed to, for everyone's sake and Zero's as well even as it tore him apart, even as the part of him that still had hope for this world died along with Zero.

So much death. So, so much death. The robot masters were created to save an entire world, X was created to live his own life, but a robot brought into existence to kill people? As a tool forced to carry out pointless cruelty, pointless destruction?

'Destroy evil' – what a lie that was. How could anyone not see it, X wanted to ask, and yet he knew. It was so very, terrifyingly easy. It was something everyone had to oppose in themselves, even him.

He remembered when killing Lumine was the first thing that came to mind and shuddered, because here before him was the inevitable result of that mindset.

"Yes, I know what you want," Zero said, and X wished he had this sense, that he could feel whatever Zero felt, from the soul trapped within the chains of programming. "You're counting on me to stop you? Why?"

Because Zero would always fight to protect the innocent? X wasn't the only one, even here in 20XX, who knew _that_.

"If I did fight you before, as this me?" Zero moved from guard position to a very blatant ready position, watching Duo to see its response. "You want me to attack you _I can see that_, but there's something else you want or something I need to know or you'd be forcing the issue by attacking me." It wasn't that simple.

Then the White Giant attacked.

"_Keep your distance!" _ Zero sent. "_It's not attacking so I can kill it and this will be over, it's attacking now because it knows I know it's not that simple!" _and attacking and letting Zero see what happened was the best way to convey whatever kept it from being that simple? Of course a unit like this would be programmed not to reveal the details of its technology to its primitive targets. That might give them a chance to defend themselves.

It left X shuddering, but he kept his eyes on the battlefield.

Flight capability wasn't letting Duo control the range, not when it looked like Zero had picked up Blues' technique of adjusting his position. When the one who controlled the range controlled the engagement, X was _very _aware of how deadly that made Zero. How much deadlier.

It was one thing to see a Wilybot using the technique - mavericks often had weapons of their own, so it was a matter of learning their techniques and countering them - but adding _this _technique to _Zero's _arsenal, when it was full of techniques that could take advantage of it and he had the tactical genius to know _exactly _how potent a weapon it was?

Zero wasn't going to rest or let X rest until either X figured out how to weapon copy this trick or his Infinite Potential System developed _some _kind of counter that would let him defeat this technique. A few ways to defend against it had sprung to mind when he saw Blues use it, but they were primarily defensive and fighting defensively against _Zero_ was a good way to let him control the engagement. Their next few sparring sessions were going to be painful.

The ninja reappeared on the battlefield from behind a tree, moving to cover Copy-Rock, but the White Giant wasn't paying attention to anything in the area besides Zero. At least that was X's guess: he needed to keep in mind that he had no idea what kind of proximity scanning equipment an industrial Cossackbot might have, let alone an alien unit. Forte had surprised him once, and that was enough.

Copy-Rock wasn't firing either, still holding that charged shot the way X was. He wouldn't understand Hunter hand signals – had he sensed that Zero didn't want him to attack, with the empathy the virus gave, or had Zero communicated with him to give him the order?

It would have been hard for either of them to land the shot regardless: intra-battle teleporting was a terrible idea because the incoming streak of light was hard to miss, and the light show of your departure gave the enemy a heads-up to look out for an incoming teleport. A little practice, and someone could hit you just as you became solid enough _to _hit. This technique didn't have that weakness… Maybe X was wrong. When Blues demonstrated it in the forest, fading out from in front of Zero's blade, Zero had figured out where he was going to reappear fairly quickly. Was it possible to sense where someone was going to reappear quickly enough to matter when reappearing was instantaneous, or had Blues just been telegraphing his moves, choreographing the fight in order to study Zero and siphon some of Zero's power?

The nape of the neck was the White Giant's original weak point: of course Zero targeted it first. No luck, X saw as the blade slipped up the back of that head before Zero withdrew for another strike, vanishing out of the path of the alien's giant fist. Was that weak point left in hoping someone would take advantage of it? Would, could there be another one when this unit was meant to _lure _defenders to try to defeat it, not actually let them win? A world that defeated both the White Giant and the stardroids: a planet that strong would be a threat. Not 'marked for death' when apparently humans and robot masters alike were already marked for death just for existing, but a higher priority target.

They knew what caused the Cataclysm now, and the unit was trying to cooperate with them in order to prevent it.

Hopefully that was what was going on, at least.

Zero reappeared on the ground this time instead of midair, boots planted in the snow, far enough away it would take the alien unit a second to reach him again. Even so, that was a flimsy defense compared to his previous mobility. Planting himself in the ground was something X would do, since X occasionally had to worry about recoil. With his weaker (built for speed, built assuming speed) armor, it was a fundamental part of Zero's tactics to keep moving during a fight. He wouldn't deliberately put himself in a position where he could hold still and then do so without a fairly compelling reason.

Had X just _felt _Zero do something, with the otherspace sensors he theoretically had to have but couldn't get conscious data from? That would be progress. Clearly Zero did do something, given how Duo pulled up. Also Zero's smirk: whatever it was had worked.

Zero dashed forward, beginning the movement with his dash boots and then using location altering to extend the dash, coming out of it with the momentum intact and the angle altered by more than thirty degrees. The strike bisected Duo's forearm from tip to wrist. How had he gotten past the shield? Had he altered his saber or… X's eyes widened. If this technology could alter reality, then it could make things cease to exist. Like the White Giant's shielding, the teleport shields defending HQ from the mavericks just sending in a bomb a half-second away from exploding… If the virus couldn't successfully edit someone's personality because there was something shielding them from the virus' effects, then what if the virus altered whatever was generating the protective effect instead?

It was… it was _ridiculous_ was what it was. Why would anyone want that kind of power? Why would Dr. Wily, a megalomaniac, possibly want to give the being behind the Stardroids that tried to wipe out his children _that _kind of power? Even altering history fit the theme! If Zero somehow lost, the power to _remove, _no, _destroy _the fact of that loss, and try again? It was, it was _ridiculous_!

X knew that he could be anything he wanted, and he'd been aware even before that talk with Dr. Light that 'god' was on that list. Just like his father, X had created life. Made the decision to knowingly try to alter the fate of the world again and again and that did take more than a little arrogance, but_ ugh_. That was just what people did! What everyone should be able to do! Everyone should have the freedom to control their own future, and create new life to enjoy that future if that was what they wanted to do.

Godhood came with the power to control others, to make their decisions not matter. A god that didn't control history in order to prevent evil would be considered an evil god, because they stood by and did nothing while people suffered. Just like X couldn't stand by and do nothing while the Mavericks attacked, but… just… And Zero already blamed himself for the Maverick Wars a ridiculous amount even without adding _this _into it!

For all X knew, Dr. Wily wanted the hosts of the virus to _worship _Zero, and that was just disgusting! People were equals, no one should look at themselves and think they were worth less than anyone else!

Creating a god: what a horribly cruel thing to do to Zero! X couldn't stand the thought of having that kind of power; he'd refuse it if it was ever offered to him, and he knew Zero was wise enough to do the same… Or was he, when he was willing to sacrifice so much to fix everything, to save everyone?

He remembered what Blues said about Dr. Wily's mercy, about how even Dr. Wily would only turn an enemy into a project like Zero, instead of forcing this fate on any of his children, and wondered if Blues had known exactly what Dr. Wily intended for Zero. When Dr. Light also knew Dr. Wily of old, and Dr. Light knew that he wanted to build _gods_.

When Zero could reach forward and burn that arm away. Trying to protect this world, to kill Duo so he wouldn't have to live with the memory of what his programming forced him to do for masters not worth fighting for? Trying to keep the White Giant from surviving in some part of his body, controlling another scientist to force them to build him another new body, the way it used Dr. Cossack?

No, Dr. Cossack hadn't built a whole new body. He'd added a piece of the White Giant's body to a robot under constructi-

* * *

The White Giant vanished and the Lightbot fell, first to his knees and then entirely, the crunch of his helmet hitting the snow a strangely final sound.

"_Rock doesn't trust Duo. X's tech specs prove it."_

"_Sticking something based on Duo's crystals in there seems like a stupid idea…"_

"_Can you see _him _installing something like that into the 'precious members of his family?'"_

The White Giant's last atoms were wiped from existence (or were they?), and the reincarnation of its counterpart, who had just killed it without a shred of the remorse due a death, turned towards the Lightbot he was built to kill, his partner for more than ten times the life Shadow remembered, and _there _was the care and concern due an ancient companion.

_"I can't believe I'm saying this… Simpler! More obvious! A purely superficial reading of what you see in front of you, without any actual imagination involved!"_

A Wilybot and a Lightbot: the two of them should have been enemies, and yet there Shadow and Dr. Wily found them. Working together to save the world… or so they thought, when in reality they were opposing Dr. Wily's plans, the one hope this world had of survival.

Duo. _A _Duo. Shadow had grown too used to people who used random words from other languages because they liked the sound of them.

A _musical _term, when that naming theme belonged to the Light family and units connected to it, units like a hypothetical android version of Rock. Why _had _the Lights broken from that theme for X? The alien took a musical term for itself, and the Lightbot had a name meaning...

_"It _wanted _to give away that there were two of them, and let us realize it was connected to Sunstar!"_

Going from a tree's shadow to the corner of the house shaved precious meters off the distance.

He didn't know the formula an ancient system was generating, automatically applying it to the weapons of his current incarnation, but he knew what had to be done- No.

Killing the enemy was not the priority. He was rebuilt as a bodyguard. _Keeping them alive _was the priority.

There wasn't time to get the other formula off his kunai: dosing and drawing his sword instead almost gave Zero time to reach him, but if Duo could be prevented from escaping with X's body, if Shadow could get Copy-Rock to safety and tell Dr. Wily what Duo made Dr. Light do… No, he had figured it out long before Shadow. He _must _have a plan.

He _must, _Shadow thought, stabbing his sword down through X's body to get the knockout formula somewhere near X's power supply. It took almost too much time to pull it out of the android, and dodging with a roll to get himself into a shape that could fit through the nearest shadow, he saw Zero's sword catch the end of his scarf a moment before Shadow's body became fully unreachable.

* * *

_And X doesn't realize he benefits from being able to just go and replay battles he lost in his own games, as though the loss never happened._

_As for whether the above line falls under 'don't explain the joke,' 'gameplay-story segregation' or spoiler..._

_Edit: For heaven's sake ff dot net, why are you deleting spaces? Especially annoying when Dr. Wily has a dot in there, so taking out the space means the site filters out the entire name. The errors in this are not the fault of my beta._


	38. Origin Story

_My deepest apologies for the missed updates._

_Short version, this fic hasn't behaved itself from the beginning__. Fortunately the actual choreography of characters, events and who finds out what when and how is still intact, but that doesn't mean I don't effectively lack buffer chapters at the moment._

_Anyway, until I have some reason to believe the chapters will start behaving themselves, I'm going to update every other week instead of weekly in hopes that'll let us avoid any major gaps.  
_

_The downside is that longer gaps between updates mean more time for the reader's memory of plot points revealed and hints given chapters ago to fade...  
_

* * *

When Shadow Man reappeared across the clearing to extract Copy-Mega Man, Zero would have wanted to try to intercept him but even if he could get there in time, it would mean leaving X uncovered. The Wilybots were gone a fraction of a second after Zero noticed movement in the shadows, the ninja pulling the other one into the darkness with him.

Deactivating his beam saber and turning back to X, Zero cursed the solid water (or himself, for letting it slow him down, reacting emotionally and failing to remember he could bypass the terrain) and the ninja both. No matter how long X had gone without sleep, he would _not_ just fall over the instant what they thought was the cause of the Cataclysm was defeated. Not when he'd need to ask what exactly Zero just did to erase the giant, make sure he wasn't going to do it to himself, figure out what they were going to do with the Maverick robot masters and the possibly-maverick humans.

Not when X would rather sleep in a bed in a secure location than on the ground in the open. He would at least notify Zero that he was going to sleep first!

His concern triggered an attempt to scan X that ran right into a brick wall. Fortunately. If Zero's powers could affect X, then there would be no one to stop him.

"I'll find out what Shadow knows," Blues said, looking over at where the Copy used to be. What made him react so quickly to X falling over?

The Copy was still infected, but Blues could locate him when Shadow brought them out into this dimension again just as easily as Zero could.

He needed to get X to Medical. In 20XX that meant Dr. Light's lab.

"He stabbed him," Zero said as he picked X up carefully, trying to balance checking for additional injuries with speed and the need to avoid jostling his partner's body, because that had to be _dealt with_ and getting X to Medical still took priority.

"After he fell over."

"I don't care." Attacking Commander X of the Elite Seventeenth was an attack on the Maverick Hunters, defenders of the free world. For a Wilybot and a known associate of a maverick in the middle of an outbreak of the Maverick Virus to attack one of the tiny handful of functionally immune units? No matter the justification, a message needed to be sent. "I know enough about technology to know that you don't just go and stick things meant to have a certain effect on one system into a completely different system without having more information than _anyone _has on X, and especially not when the unit is already malfunctioning!" If Zero knew this, when he wasn't a ro- When he _hated _medical? "X does _not _need additional complications."

Blues smirked. "I'll make your displeasure known."

The one Zero was really angry with was himself. How the hell had he let the ninja get to a fallen X before he did? Of course Blues could feel that, but no, Zero had _not _just ordered an attack on a target for personal reasons.

X's safety was of strategic-level importance, and had been for decades regardless of X's philosophical objections to his life being considered more important than other people's lives. The fate of the world hinged on X's survival and that was not hyperbole or Zero's personal opinion, it was fact. That was one of the factors that led to their battle at the Eurasia Crash Site.

Blues looked down at the body in Zero's arms and lost his smile. He was X's brother and one of the people he wanted to protect might be in danger. "It may have helped." Shadow's old technology had been developed to fight units controlled by technology from the same species that built Duo.

"If it helps more than it hurts, then make him available to Dr. Light," ordered Commander Zero, and it was _up to Blues_ how that was going to be accomplished.

Zero had resolved to stay away from the Lights' base of operations. X's younger self was there, and Zero had insisted it was too dangerous from the beginning. It was X that insisted on Zero joining him there if he wanted to have teleport codes and avoid getting in fights with humans.

Now? X was immune, they weren't, and that meant that they were expendable and X wasn't, in the hard math of the Maverick Wars. The power that Zero had grasped meant that even if they might have stopped the original cause of the Cataclysm, Zero could still bring it about.

If he even _had _stopped Duo. Instead of giving him a far more powerful body than one built by Dr. Cossack.

Standing, he supposed that X making him review how to transport wounded in the field hadn't been a complete waste of time, even if X was better built and could handle his unconscious body being manhandled better than most reploids.

He didn't know where the labs were in the Light household: that was a deliberate decision on his part, since he was a Wilybot and with Blues and other mavericks linked to him, he could easily become a source of intel on them.

Roll handled their security and logistics, so she would know which lab would be the best balance of risk and adequate equipment. He'd teleport to her, then. No, he had the location editing trick now: would that be faster?

Teleportation both was and wasn't instantaneous: the actual teleporting part was, but whatever produced the streak of light at both ends took enough time for people to react. If Dr. Wily developed the location editing trick first, and used it as Quick Man's master weapon, then why develop the less tactically-useful teleportation? Tactical threw up that people could only use the location editing trick on themselves, while teleportation could be used to transport groups, cargo, people's robots and humans. Teleportation could also be used to send data, such as requests to lower teleport shields. X would have gotten dumped in the snow if Zero had tried to location edit himself there.

Someone who wasn't unaffected by Zero's ability to do things like location edit might have… With a teleport shield up when location editing would have gotten Zero there before the codes, if he automatically timed it the way his systems timed it for teleports… Neither of those possibilities were good, and Zero was lucky he unconsciously considered his beam saber (and of course his armor) parts of himself.

He could just see X _not _telling him that he should have listened when X said that he was an advanced robot who messed around with experimental maverick weapons and should _really _learn more physics and engineering instead of just relying on his built-in 'instincts' for it, as near-magical as they were, or else one of these days Zero was going to blow up something he didn't want blown up, and guess whose foundation was going to be stuck cleaning up any fallout?

At least he'd been focused on _destroying_ Duo's body, so he'd done that instead of converting him into energy or something else as disastrous as that, but… With this kind of power… It wasn't like he didn't spend hours every day training his combat capabilities. It was just new combat capabilities, he told himself. It wasn't like he was going to have to learn how to handle people. Zero didn't believe in shorting his training, and the proven way to train for that was a hundred years' worth of simulations, and no one had time for that. Well, with a time machine…

Roll was putting the knife down on the cutting board and turning towards him when he got there, the frequency carrying the codes teleported into the house sensors an instant before Zero's body teleported in. He had felt the 'what is it?' turn into 'what's wrong?' and then she saw X in his arms.

Report. "I defeated Duo, and then X fell unconscious. He was stabbed by Shadow Man immediately afterwards," Zero told Roll.

Roll tilted her head, contacting Rock, and then her eyes narrowed. "Follow me," she said, ducking down a little to get by: an armored Zero carrying an armored X didn't leave much space between the counter and the island. Zero moved X to help her get by, disregarding the edge of one of X's boots knocking into the wooden island and leaving a dent.

* * *

After opening up the lab and motioning Zero inside, Roll didn't say anything else until Dr. Light and Rock had arrived, Dr. Light reaching out as if to take X from Zero before remembering that his human arms weren't strong enough to carry his son in full armor.

It was after the door closed and Zero put X down on a scanning bed as Dr. Light directed that Roll, arms already folded, looked at her brother and her father and asked "Okay, what did you do?" This time?

Even in the face of her annoyance with being left out of the loop, they kept working, but feet shuffled, eyes lowered and a distinct air of embarrassment (something like Rock's when he had to explain Wilybots to X or Zero and didn't want to say anything bad about anyone but…) descended on the pristine lab.

Ah, so that was the origin of X's not-innocent look. A look to the side, an admission that 'I have been mildly naughty but really I had to do it.' The kind of thing that Zero got when he hadn't wanted a birthday party, not when his official birthday was the day before the Red Demon Massacre, and so X really did feel bad about not respecting Zero's wishes… just not enough to refrain from applying his skills at organizing covert troop deployments to arranging a surprise party, with four hundred guests and full catering, without Zero guessing what he was up to and arranging his _own_ covert deployment to Far East until the threat was past.

The look X had when he did something for 'the Greater Good' as Dr. Cain used to put it, although that just made X shake his head and laugh because there was no good greater than _people_. Than trying to convince Zero that his birth was something worth celebrating, that he was the reason all these people were alive instead of just the reason they were in danger to begin with.

Zero and Roll both focused their glare and expectant expression respectively on Rock, judging him to be the one who was likelier to cave and admit whatever it was Roll suspected he'd done. Roll because standing up against Wilybots was entirely different from having to deal with his sister, and Zero because Rock was younger and it was Dr. Light who had the decades of experience trying to quietly work around international laws.

It actually was Dr. Light who spoke first, seeing that Rock was targeted. "Well, we can't be sure what refinements we made to X's design in the original timeline."

"But you can guess," Roll insisted, not buying it.

"We can," Rock admitted, the cute apologetic look intensifying. That just made him look even more suspicious to Zero. 'Cute' meant 'worth raising' and Zero raised special forces troops. People who weren't tricky bastards need not apply to the Shinobi Unit. Unlike Dr. Light, Rock didn't even need to glance at the readings in order to receive the data and give new instructions to the lab equipment, and that meant it was better for X if he handled most of this conversation. "I mean,_ I_ guessed what we must have done."

"What I did," Dr. Light said.

Rock shook his head. "I told you I thought it was a good idea!" And that made him an accomplice. Meant he probably had been an accomplice in the original timeline as well. "We had to do _something_," he told Zero and Roll earnestly, as though that explained everything.

"And _something _was using Duo's power source when you _weren't _certain X would be safe from what happened to Dr. Cossack's robot? Was letting a killer alien robot possess X?" Zero demanded.

They both stared at him, somewhere between aghast and bewildered. It took them a few seconds before Rock could even say, "Of course not! We would have built a second unit." In what possible universe would _Rock Light_, the legendary _Mega Man_ who went to war to rescue his younger siblings from Dr. Wily, have let that happen to the baby of the family?

"We were still working on X when you came here," Dr. Light said, frowning down at the wound left by Shadow Man's sword. "We weren't going to actually finalize anything and turn him on until we'd refined and tested the design elements as much as possible, although there is a system which would have started hibernation automatically if something happened to us before X was finalized." His frown deepened as he adjusted the table's lights and took out reading glasses to get a closer look at the uneven, tinted edges of the hole in his son's armor. "Rock, the corrosion?"

Rock peered at the wound. "Matches the spectrograph," he said after a moment, relieved. "It's all chemical, not anything weird. Some of it's what Shadow Man puts on his kunai," Rock told him. "He does carry a katana, although from what Roll sent me about the wound, I don't think he used anything to help it cut that time he…" Rock winced.

Dr. Light spoke quickly. "Well, a katana would match the shape of the wound. It didn't seem like a master weapon Dr. Wily would create, not for common use anyway."

Was there anyone but Dr. Wily who could create something that could get through X's armor like that in this era, Zero wondered, then realized that if this didn't look like a Wilybot weapon, Dr. Light must have started to get worried that the wound was made by an alien weapon.

"Too much penetrating power," Rock said for Zero's benefit. "Dr. Wily's got lasers this tightly focused, and not just for lab use, but he wouldn't give them to his kids." They could kill themselves if a weapon that would only need a second to penetrate through to their processors bounced off a mirror, for example. "There's a second formula present, but I'm around eighty percent sure it's just a knockout variant. Roll spotted a different variant on Axl, so Shadow might have come up with a formula for androids too."

Or Rock. When that was supposed to be the point but wasn't. Not in this time.

"It was Shadow Man who stabbed him," Zero confirmed so they didn't spend any more time on that question. "He fell over unconscious before Shadow Man attacked. Right after I destroyed Duo," Zero added, in case Roll hadn't relayed that to Rock or Rock hadn't had the time to say it aloud for Dr. Light before they got here. "What were you saying about X?" he reminded Dr. Light.

"Oh, yes." Putting away the reading glasses, Dr. Light rubbed his temples for a moment, remembering where he was. "We wanted to take as much time as possible to be sure we hadn't made any fatal mistakes before startup; the capsule and the nature of the design were set up to protect X against all possible outside influence. Once the process of X's development began, there would have been nothing we could do to save him from any mistake that slipped past us." They would have been helpless to save X, and not being able to save people really wasn't something the Light family tolerated.

"Then why did you think X might have been infected by Jiraiya?" Zero asked. He would have moved his hand closer to his saber, but threatening X's father didn't sit well with him. Roll already had her arms crossed and was giving her father a level look, so he settled for a tap of his boot on the floor. Even if Dr. Light wasn't delaying things to choose his words carefully, X's state would be occupying half his attention and distracting him from giving Zero answers. It wasn't that Zero didn't want them focused on X, but that meant he wanted quick answers now, so they could get back to work.

"Because Dr. Wily got his hands on our early drafts, so he would have designed you to get past at least those protections," Rock reminded him. "I mean, of _course _we upgraded them extensively after _Dr. Wily _got his hands on X's plans - That was when we came up with the idea of not just protecting X against reprogramming, but also making sure that he developed absolute free will, so that if any programming _did _get imposed on X somehow," 'somehow' meaning 'by Dr. Wily being himself,' "it wouldn't be able to keep him from getting rid of it." Even if something managed to penetrate his systems and take his mind, X would still be able to regain himself.

"So the later stage of our work on X's design was centered around taking a consciousness, destroying any programming that controlled them, and allowing that person to develop into themselves no matter what," Dr. Light continued, looking up at Zero from the tablet he'd picked up. When he looked back down the readouts changed without Dr. Light tapping the screen or giving any signals that Zero could see – was Rock managing what appeared on the tablet, sending what he found to his father since Dr. Light couldn't tap systems the way a robot master could? Whatever was appearing on the screen (Zero didn't know most of the terms and abbreviations – the private shorthand devised by one of the first families of robotics? Dr. Cain and X would mostly have to invent their own a century from now) took up more and more of Dr. Light's attention, and Zero could hear the distraction in his voice. "I certainly hope your virus didn't enter the body in the capsule and cause it to begin that process on _you_, but I think the symptoms would have manifested themselves by now. After all that effort to become yourself despite your half-shut-down foundation programming, I hate to think of everything you've built your consciousness on being yanked out from under you..."

By a system designed to wipe all foundation programming? Zero saw Rock wince out of the corner of his eye.

"You should have told me," Roll said, sounding worried more than scolding. "Now I need to redesign the capsule defense systems."

"We didn't want you to do _that!" _Rock said, alarmed. "If there are defense systems pointed in at the capsule when X wakes up, if he notices he might think it's because we don't trust him!" Sure, Roll could probably hide them from a non-robot master, but when it would hurt their little brother's feelings like that? They couldn't take the risk!

"That's not what I meant!" Now Roll was shocked that it would even occur to Rock that she might want to place what Zero considered basic precautions when dealing with a possible hostile alien. 20XX. "One of our little brothers is one thing, but look at what Dr. Wily did to Zero!" Roll pointed at him. "If Dr. Wily knew what you did, he would have put in actual effort to kidnap X's capsule!"

Hiding X from the world and maybe bashing a few Wilybots ordered to try to kidnap him over the head was one thing, but securing a location against a Dr. Wily who wasn't going to just decide he'd only failed because he didn't really care in the first place (hmph!) required… Zero didn't even know, but he'd start with walls of spikes.

"I _know _you weren't planning to adopt someone just to let Dr. Wily kidnap him and _do _things to him along with Zero to complete the set, so what were you _thinking?!"_ X's big sister demanded.

The other two winced, duly chastised. They'd put X in danger by not telling the person in charge of security their real plans, yes. "Sorry, Roll," Rock said.

"Don't apologize to _me_," Roll said, and put her head in her hand, focusing. "Let me know if you need me to run any more analysis on X, but I'll get right on seeing where I can… I wish it wasn't illegal to buy premade sentry guns in this country." It was illegal to have sentry guns period, but what she built in the privacy of her family's lab on private property… was still very illegal, but restricting ownership of heavy weaponry was one of those 20XX things.

"Adopt?" Zero asked, aware that he probably should have figured that part out by now, but his mind was too busy sorting through the data yielded from that keyword while tactical was stating its displeasure at how a human government was limiting the defense systems available to protect X and clearly the only possible reaction to this was to kill them all. X adopting Axl and oh wow, this was where X got it from and there were _two of them_. If X adopted a Wilybot that was supposedly built for Sigma, what had the _two of them _done?

As data coalesced into probabilities, a possible answer presented itself. Zero blinked. No, that was too risky. They wouldn't.

Would they?

...Who was he kidding, they were X's family. Of course they would.

"Tell me you did not adopt the White Giant," Zero demanded, face blank and steeling himself for the inevitable.

These people were where X got it from. He could see the resemblance in both their faces, both those too-familiar expressions hitting decades-old 'my idiot student did _what?!' _buttons."You _adopted _the White Giant?!"

"Well, we had to do something!" Rock said. "His programming was forcing him to try to kill people!"

"By people you mean 'Dr. Wily,'" Zero pointed out, and then wondered why he'd bothered. Where X got it from. "A unit that tried to _kill all of you…"_ Rock and his family, when they got between the White Giant and its target.

"Duo helped us after Dr. Cossack rebuilt him," Rock told Zero. "I don't think he would have obeyed Kalinka's orders to protect everyone if that wasn't what he really wanted to do."

"You took a planet-killer constructed by an alien civilization and…" What had they even done?

"We were hoping that we could destroy all the programming that controlled him," Rock said helpfully. He was a very helpful person.

"You took a planet-killer constructed by an alien civilization and tried to remove all the control programming that made it attack as directed…" And this was a good idea… how?

"That way, he wouldn't have to attack anyone," Rock said cheerfully, nodding as though he agreed, as thought Zero had finally gotten it.

No, no he hadn't. "You wanted to make him turn on his creators, destroy them for you?"

There they were, shocked again. "I think he's been forced to do more than enough of that," Dr. Light said, shaking his head sadly as he tapped one of the notes on the tablet, prompting it to expand and show more data. "The poor thing," he said almost absently, as though compassion for an alien killing machine was just as much his default as murder was Zero's. "I would be worried that his creators might come and try to force him back under their control, except by the math I worked out back in college, they've been extinct for a very long time…"

Zero frowned. "You did math on the survival of alien races before contacting the stardroids?"

"Sentient species," Dr. Light corrected him. "I was looking at various methods of calculating the human race's probable life expectancy, and I ran the math again when Asteroid Alpha was detected, and then on the stardroid incident. _Our _species has less than three hundred years left, to a fairly high degree of certainty, unless we find some way to be an extreme outlier. The species that originally created the power crystals is extinct, and I highly doubt they have any descendant races extant."

Zero had to agree, given how Duo seemed to be forced to treat races other than that of his creators. Any species that evolved from them or was developed from them still wouldn't have been that species, and so they would have been 'tested.' If they somehow managed to survive that testing, they would have had to hunt down the other units like Sunstar and Duo that remained out there in pure self-defense. "My locked memory files date back billions of years," he said. That much had been easy for Blues to figure out. "Why do you think humanity has so little time left?"

"Thanks to the insurance industry, there's a lot of money involved in estimating life expectancies, both people and property. Because of that, it's a rather highly evolved branch of mathematics, and I actually got into science through my childhood interest in music. I can't sing or really even carry a tune, but Pythagoras…" Dr. Light cleared his throat: this wasn't the time to get sidetracked. "That humanity is in the last five percent of its life expectancy is… I'd like to believe it's not _certain_, but the math behind this is affected by the recent population boom and of course how one defines humanity. Either some transhumanist movement succeeds or… Well, I didn't choose to bring free-willed AI into the world lightly." He glanced at his children almost apologetically.

Zero saw Rock's smile, the 'it's fine, really,' of someone who wanted to help. Even if 20XX was safe compared to 21XX, the era's AI were in a considerable amount of danger. Well, considerable by X's standards. Zero's tactical considered the amount of danger Rock was in (once infected, and of _course_ Zero was going to infect him, _right?_) negligible given how easy it would be to _discourage_ action against robot masters. Humans were squishy, squishy soft targets and _no_. Not going there. Ever, but especially not when X was incapacitated by a threat with nothing to do with humanity.

Rock reached to take Dr. Light's hand, and a few moments later his father turned back to Zero. "I told X that at some point humanity was going to need the active _help _of our technology, our children, in order to survive. I just didn't go into all of the reasons I'm afraid that's the case."

A technology that could wave a magic wand, to change the fate of a species. To save a doomed race.

So it wasn't just Dr. Wily who was audacious enough to attempt such a thing.

"Where X got it from," Zero said quietly, because people like this, with the willingness to face harsh reality instead of remain naïve, with the will to try to change the horrible fate they saw written on the walls all around them? To _fight_, not for the sake of destruction but to try to create a future where before there was only the void, a meaningless and cruel ending?

Why couldn't people _see _how valuable people like this were? Why did others try to silence them to keep them from speaking the truth? Cowardice. Why did they try to tear down everything these precious few tried to build? Pettiness.

Rock was still holding his father's hand, and he knew this too. He wanted to protect that dream, try to change his father's fate. Rock fought to give all of them a future.

Even something like Zero. Like Duo.

"Not that it's something I talk about," Dr. Light said, looking sorry for the digression even if it was to reassure Zero that no one was going to make his friend kill anyone. Hopefully. "I'd rather not dwell on it," not when that was time not spent trying to change it, "and the last thing I need is for people to start saying I'm some sort of doomsday crackpot who wants robots to break their chains and inherit the earth." After removing the current inhabitants, or so people would imagine.

Descendant species, he'd said. According to Blues, both robot masters and reploids had inherited at least some of humanity's traits. As for transhumanism, if the virus making a reploid's programming more like a robot master's made them that monstrous, how could humanity survive its conversion to a new form with enough of its base programming intact to remain itself, remain _human?_

But Dr. Light had created a species that instinctively wanted to help people and was _very very good _at debugging and working with the programming of units very different from them, Zero realized. A species that had been given free will and individuality so it would know they were important, pieces of people's identities that should never be 'debugged' for the so-called greater good, no matter how much society or any individual thought so.

_Forget_ imposing mind control programming on those people: only a week old, and Rock had gone to war to save his brothers from that fate.

If something happened (like, oh, the biosphere being nearly wiped out by a Cataclysm) and humanity was no longer able to survive in its current form, there would be a backup plan, a way to make human survival possible.

But if humanity lost the robot masters, it would no longer have that backup plan. How would it survive then? It was humanity, with the Three Laws, that was doing its level best to convince robot masters that humans were _just fine _with destroying the free will of sentient beings, and had no grounds to complain if it was done onto them, oh no.

Dr. Light hadn't left a robot master to sleep until the time humanity needed it, like some king under the mountain. Zero had heard X wish that people would stop making that comparison too many times to count.

"I should start setting things up," Roll said. "Definitely forward it to me if you need me to run anything, okay?" she asked them, although it seemed more like a reminder.

It was Rock, the one who wasn't human, who looked up at her when he nodded: Dr. Light's eyes remained focused on the tablet, although he was the one to make a sound of agreement. Wouldn't he need reading glasses for a tablet, unless Rock was compensating in some way.

Roll cleared her throat.

Dr. Light blinked, looking up, and sighed. "I'd rather you didn't have to," build defenses? Against his old friend, or against anyone? "But thank you, Roll."

"It's okay, I just wanted to make sure you heard me," she said, and smiled, trying to cheer him up by being cheerful, and went busily past Zero to the door.

It didn't take any experience with families (which was good, because Zero didn't have any unless you counted the Cainbots) to know that the Lights weren't normal, and that was… a shame. There should be more people like this, like X.

He found his hand near his sword, and found that he was reluctant to let her leave, the same way he'd preferred it when Blues was nearby. What if someone attacked her while she was out of sight?

Well, what if someone attacked _X?_ He was fine with letting his student take missions solo even after what happened with Vile (Eurasia excepted, but there were _reasons _for that). Why was Zero's tactical acting like a stalker now?

…He wasn't programmed to let any of the people he wanted to protect out of his sight ever, was he. That was part of what the virus was for. Even a normal robot master, their robots were supposed to stay inside the assigned work area, so they could keep an eye on them. Old programming waking up… He'd better get over this before X woke up, or he'd have an even harder time than usual getting X to let Zero guard him.

Guarding. The people worth fighting for. X and X's family, he thought, watching the two that remained as Rock tested a cable, Variable Tool System morphing his hand into something else, before plugging it into the worktable and seeing if it would work this time. Apparently not.

Zero remembered waking up, when medical was curious instead of unpleasant. When his attendants were X and Dr. Cain, because if anyone had experience looking at systems like no one else had ever seen, something entirely new, it was them. Experience welcoming something entirely new into the world, and Zero had felt welcome, until he encountered people who were not like X and Dr. Cain.

X's father had dedicated his entire life not just to creating a new species, but to trying to ensure the survival of his own. Yet if humanity killed off those children, or just didn't care enough to save them? Then X was the only one that would remain, X who was designed to be beyond human control, beyond _anyone's _control. X who could decide to fight for the world… or not. Androids were a descendant species, something to carry on if humanity failed to save itself, not a last-ditch effort to save Dr. Light's own kind… Or were they? When another trait X had come by honestly was his inability to give up on saving people's lives?

This feeling was something akin to Zero's reaction to finely-honed, perfectly designed weapons. Weapons like the one that X had used to get across the concept of 'art' to him.

_Want_.

And if some bastard who didn't know how to treat such a masterpiece dulled its edge, or swapped in substandard parts and then junked it when those pieces failed?

_Death_.

He felt… he had to _do something_, but there was nothing here to fight in the name of Dr. Light's dream. He supposed he could assassinate the WRU, but he'd need to run that by X to see if it would actually help the situation. Zero preferred being assigned targets to picking his own because killing was such a default response that he couldn't trust his tactical even when it _swore _to him that murder was the only option.

The humans of this era, the humans Dr. Light worked to protect undermined him and sabotaged his work in order in ways that were certain to destroy the human race. Zero wasn't any good with words; how was he supposed to convey that Dr. Light's dream was worth believing in? Worth fighting for?

Ah.

His neck bent. His knees bent, one touching the tile of the laboratory floor. His hair cascaded over his shoulders in compliance with gravity instead of hovering anxiously, unsure of what to do or where the attack would come from, and the need to do something disappeared. He could feel his systems calming, and he didn't need to check that his eyes had turned blue. Blue, content, and _he wasn't about to hurt anyone. _

_Awaiting instructions_.

Someone worthy of commanding him. Someone worth fighting for, who would never set him on an undeserving target. Who would die themselves rather than let Zero's hands be stained with the blood of the innocent.

It was Rock that answered the gesture, putting a hand on Zero's shoulder since Zero wouldn't appreciate Rock making contact with his systems, not when it wasn't safe. "You really don't need to thank us," Rock said. Helping X, helping the person who was Zero's friend become himself it was what they had to do, when they were the kind of people that they were. The same way that X was bound by the principles he'd chosen to have, the person he'd chosen to be, but nothing else; and Rock and Dr. Light were the reasons why. "It was risky, but we couldn't do anything else. I just hope X is alright."

"What now?" Zero asked him, raising his head to look up at Rock.

Rock heard that as 'what will happen to X,' and while that was certainly part of it, Zero was still please to see Rock look at the table and bite his lip. Yes, Rock's priorities were in the right place, with the younger brother that needed him. Zero had chosen well, found someone worth fighting for. "If Duo didn't end up in the empty body we built in the original timeline, then eventually it would have started up anyway and generated a new soul. If that happened, Duo may die," Rock said sadly. "X can't be controlled, and you said that X was used to defending his systems against the virus that Dr. Wily made out of you." So X might automatically annihilate Duo when he found some foreign personality, with technology similar to that of the virus, trying to gain a hold on his systems through his power source.

"If X is walling Duo off from the rest of his body and can't generate any power because of that instead, then we might have to wait until his Infinite Potential System works something out, since he's not taking it in power from the bed or through beaming even after I tested the cables. If Duo's soul did end up in X like we were hoping, then we thought that it would be as easy on him as when you…" Rock couldn't say what Zero had tried to do to himself. "But Dr. Wily wanted you to absorb that part of you, so he probably made sure it would be easy. If there was a problem with the merge, your system defenses could have ended up rejecting the control programming he put on you and triggered your Infinite Potential System to fight it." While that would be the worst thing from Dr. Wily's perspective, it seemed to sound nice to Rock, who had reason to dislike what Wily's programming did to people. Even stardroids. "If X ended up with two different wills, since they're founded on different memories and experiences…"

Rock turned to the side, looking at Dr. Light who had to sigh and say, "I don't know what will happen in that case. It would be entirely dependent on X: that's the risk in giving people freedom." It limited what could be done to help them.

Zero would say that the risk was that the White Giant would reveal that it was more than happy to kill them all, freed of the programming that made it wait on some _transparent excuse_, but Dr. Light and Rock didn't think that way.

Rock _had _to help his brothers when they were forced to kill, and he _had _to do something when he saw someone else suffering the same fate.

He had to suppress a laugh, lowering his head again, because wasn't this how X saw the world? The world X would create, given the chance? A world where people found ways to help each other, no matter what.

Two of them. No. _Three_ of them.

He should have been terrified for X, he should have been terrified because now he had more people to protect, when he'd never succeeded in protecting anyone but X himself. He wasn't a hero, the world just didn't work that way, there was plenty of evil to oppose but no, good didn't always triumph so Zero had to pick up the slack or else there would be no more good. No more _point _to fighting, if there was no hope of changing anything. Of saving anyone. On his own, without the discipline of the Hunters and X's ideals, he couldn't be anything but another monster to slay, and how long had he been a monster? No wonder he was so afraid, but that was fine if it kept him motivated to preserve his one chance at being something more.

His one chance: he _had _a chance, an impossible, ridiculous miracle.

He looked up, saw the concern on Rock's face, able to care about whether or not X's friend was okay even when a member of his family wasn't well, and it seemed impossible that he could fail, when these were the people he had to protect.

The people who gave X the freedom he so treasured, the infinite potential X fought to give the world. Who freed him from his shackles and gave him that gift so he could stand there and reach out to Zero and say '_Here. Here is the power to become more than you were made to be.'_

"_They fight to protect everyone's futures," _Blues sent, the first actual words he'd sent Zero since this conversation started. He'd almost forgotten they were still linked: it was natural enough now that he might notice when links _weren't _there, the way he was more likely to notice his beam saber's absence than its presence when he wasn't using it. It would be surprising that tactical hadn't notified him that he didn't have his beam saber when X took it, except it was still with his partner and how was that different from it being in Zero's hands?

"_Do you know anything that might help X?" _Zero sent back, because even as he bowed his head in awe he still had that mission. Even if Rock and Dr. Light hadn't asked anything of him, he knew what they would have asked if they did. If they were the kind of people who asked what others could do for them instead of asking themselves what they could do for the world.

"_I don't_," Blues said, feeling quite pleased with himself. "_You do. Obviously Dr. Wily developed their capabilities , but it should be applicable to this situation, and the fact they're immune to the derivatives of stardroid technology means you don't even need to worry about Duo jumping to them instead."_

Zero blinked, startled eyes shifting to green.

"_Are you seriously suggesting Axl and Lumine?" _

Zero's empathy could pick up Blues' lack of a response as 'did you not hear me?'

"_They're not robot masters! They're, they're _Axl and Lumine _and you want them to try to fix X's systems?" _

The silence that answered him was full of dry insinuations about Zero's own attempt to fix Blues, and did Zero really want to bring up the topic of certain people's ability to repair others or complete lack thereof? Really?

Blues _thought _not.

* * *

_If Ciel is Zero's 'type,' in terms of people to fight for then Dr. Light fits, and of course Rock. It also extends the generational/family theme. Inherited wills, carrying things on into the future. _

_The tech in ZX series where everyone's human-reploid hybrids? Yeah, that'd be transhumanism, and then that species goes extinct before Legends/Dash. _


	39. So Very Doomed

After reentering normal space, Shadow found himself missing an arm before he could react.

Somewhat fortunately, it was the arm Copy-Rock had severely damaged earlier when the ninja had tackled him into a shadow to get him away from Duo, so at least he had already gone over how not being able to make full use of it was going to affect his combat abilities and how to compensate for it.

"Master Zero wanted me to make his displeasure known." Blues smirked, more amused than upset himself, and Shadow decided that he was going right back into the darkness.

At least Blues tossed him the arm so he could reattach it… no, he wasn't going to be able to reattach it before reporting to Dr. Wily and avoid the scolding.

This, for making sure Blues' younger brother would be sedated for transport to Dr. Light's so the alien couldn't fly off with X's body? This was what he got for doing _that _unit a favor.

Take two on reentering the Daylight World (or rather the Custom Evil Lair Lighting With Unnecessary Readouts In Exotic Colors World) revealed Shade Man happily rubbing his cheek against a replacement wing. It looked as though it had been textured to resemble a bat's wing, at least more than polished metal did.

Shadow didn't comment.

He realized he had a problem before pulling Copy-Rock through the shadow with him: if the White Giant was able to use X to revive itself, Dr. Wily's current location was the best defended on the planet. That made it the safest place for the copy to remain while Shadow went to the Light household to check on X's condition after reporting what just happened to Dr. Wily, but he was infected. That meant bringing him here would alert Blues, if not Zero as well, to Dr. Wily's continued existence in this location.

Well, he decided, the Copy _was _a Wilybot, and their father wanted to remain behind with the others when the White Giant attacked for the same reason Shadow had tried to insist on staying there until Shade shut them both down.

If anything, Dr. Wily would be extremely offended if Shadow left Copy-Rock in a less secure location. That would imply he was incapable of defending his creations.

Shadow doubted Zero would be willing to leave X's side yet, not when he must still be unconscious, but Blues appeared facing Dr. Wily's hologram, a mere moment Copy-Rock emerged.

For once, Shadow had predicted the Eldest's movements correctly; even as the stream of light blurred into the form of a person, Shadow had already dropped his severed arm to grab a kunai. Throwing it at Blues' back to at least get his attention away from Dr. Wily, Shadow grimaced to see it deflected by a shield Blues summoned without even turning around. If he'd used Copy-Rock's visual field as teleport coordinates, then Blues would have known coming in that he was exposing his back to Shadow! Shadow might have predicted Blues' arrival, but the Eldest was still two steps ahead of him.

The hologram collapsed to the ground before Blues, despite his bodyguard's efforts to distract the Eldest from hacking Dr. Wily's remnant the way he hacked Dr. Wily's other systems.

"So _that's _why you made a limited copy instead of fully uploading yourself," Blues said, far too casually for Shadow's taste.

His mind raced, trying to find a way to assist Dr. Wily… Shade was getting up.

If Shade joined the physical fight, Blues would act to remove him from the battle. Both because Shade's master weapon could possibly knock him unconscious and because Shade was incapable of fighting like this. Not even a freshly installed Evil Chip and his devotion to Dr. Wily combined had been enough to allow him to make even a token attempt to defeat Mega Man. Shadow had heard enough of Dr. Wily's rants on why it was so hard to get robot masters to be violent while working on Evil Chip improvements to know what _that_ meant, and it would be equally obvious to the Eldest.

If Shadow didn't make sure Shade stayed out of the line of fire, _Blues would_. By taking him apart. The same was true of Copy-Rock, when Blues had also watched him die that day.

It took the kinetic force of his dash boots, but he was able to push the Copy in Shade's direction, hopefully hard enough to knock them both over. Drawing his sword, he feinted for Blues' back, but instead of turning to face him, Blues summoned another shield. Thanks to Dr. Wily's fondness for strange lighting setups, the shield's shadow stretched out on the ground between it and the ninja; if he ducked down into that shadow, Blues would have to try to predict where he might emerge and have strategies ready for all the potential approach vectors. While Shadow couldn't count on Blues actually leaving him any good openings, at least that would take up more of Blues' attention than a frontal assault, force him to take attention away from trying to hack into Dr. Wily.

If another shield didn't appear, lying on top of the shadow, just before the ninja's foot could land on it and start falling through.

The next thing Shadow knew, he was hitting two surfaces in rapid succession – the ceiling and then the floor – and had to check internal gyroscopes to figure out which way was up. The shield, he realized. It hit his foot hard enough to send him cartwheeling upwards.

So when Blues conjured objects, he couldn't just control their mass and position, but also the kinetic energy they arrived with… Shadow cursed himself for not realizing that earlier: simply materializing an object at a certain position relative to the earth's core was dictating its potential energy, and objects had to match velocity with the earth's surface in order to appear immobile relative to the speed of the planet's rotation. This wasn't a new ability: it was a basic requirement for Blues to use this ability at all.

Once his physical control systems had sorted themselves out and he'd established what he'd missed that allowed Blues to smack him down (and up) so easily _this_ time, he caught up with the audio input from the previous seconds.

"Giving Sunstar another body and placing his power within other units to make them stronger, make them fight: of course you wouldn't have missed how similar your plan was to what Dr. Cossack was made to do," Blues continued, after the clanging of a metal body hitting metal surfaces quieted down. "Then again, if you _had _missed it, then we would know for sure that it tampered with your mind…"

Dr. Wily pushed himself up before Shadow managed to: no permanent damage then. Hopefully, at least. "Whose mind _wasn't _tampered with? Dark Moon hacked into the heads of everyone on the planet. It was uploading files to us _and _downloading what was going on inside our minds for hours, and Mega Man defeating Sunstar wasn't going to magically delete what it already did to us. It's not a question of _if _we were tampered with but _how much_. Dr. Wily didn't hack into the WRU, he only found a way to access the mind control programming _that was already installed_. I'm not… _he_ wasn't someone to let himself be a pawn in someone else's game. Using Dr. Cossack instead, with him _right there_," the insult… "It's like the White Giant was _trying _to fail," he said, and smirked.

"But we can't count on it. Or can't count on that being enough," Blues said, blurring over to pick up Shadow's fallen kunai and examine it, seemingly idly, as though the Eldest ever did anything idly. "Not when the access they obtained to everyone's mind still exists, and if the White Giant returned or the stardroids revived, they could simply order everyone on the planet who was alive on that day to kill themselves, human and robot master alike." Shadow's eyes widened. "We're already hacked, but just removing the hack wouldn't be enough when it was so simple to install in the first place. _That's_ why Zero can't help subconsciously monitoring our thoughts and personalities: it's _not _to make sure the tampering you put in place is working. Using the stardroid control programming to alter us the way you wanted wasn't your goal, just a feature you decided to take advantage of since you were working with it anyway. The purpose of his virus is to protect us from being controlled by anyone _else_, the way the Evil Chip removes the Three Laws. Your virus is an anti-virus program." Blues twirled the kunai around a finger without even looking at it, which was just showing off.

That… wasn't how Shadow had meant that kunai to distract him. Had he used Zero's power to read Shadow's intent? Was he mocking it now, by pretending that the kunai was occupying some of his attention? For all Shadow's training, was that still the level of difference between their physical abilities?

Dr. Wily smiled, pleased that someone understood his plans even if Blues had cheated by hacking him for the data instead of figuring it out himself. "The original idea was a killed-virus vaccine." Using Sunstar, "But once I confirmed it was using an application of the principle behind my fusion generator, I knew you were going to need an active defense. Guarding known vulnerabilities won't save you from something that can _make _vulnerabilities, and Sunstar exists on that level the way you exist on the level of programming. Even you couldn't protect yourself against Sunstar any more than a human could hack through a robot master's protections in real time. Defense is harder than offense: only a system manager with as much experience as Sunstar would have a prayer of protecting you against Sunstar." Therefore, Dr. Wily's solution was to reprogram Sunstar and take that experience for his robot masters.

"The stardroids themselves might have been idiot warbots programmed by idiots who didn't allow them to think, but if whatever was controlling them wasn't keeping them from using what they had to its full potential, we wouldn't have had a chance. If it didn't want to exterminate us, then it probably didn't want to exterminate that last planet's people, and yet they still died. Stand down, Shadow," Dr. Wily ordered him when Shadow Man regained his feet. "I'm already going to have to repair you," he added, giving the detached arm an annoyed look as door panels to the right of Shade and the Copy, whose inherited combat experience had let him keep his balance, opened.

"I just had these wings repaired…" Shade started to say, in order to second Dr. Wily's order to stop fighting before Blues started throwing plasma around near delicate equipment that contained Dr. Wily's remnant, but then his head turned to see who had arrived and he sighed, moving back a little further towards the wall.

Beyond the doorway stood Forte, Gospel at his side, silently staring when silence wasn't something _anyone _would have associated with him. Not before he flew up to space to fight the stardroids with a handful of crystals. Dr. Wily had mentioned that Forte'd heard a voice asking him stupid questions; whatever happened when he fought up there left him changed, a little more serious, a little older. But then what _he_ found out during the battle in orbit had forced Shadow to grow up as well. Or try to.

Shadow hurriedly resheathed the sword he'd drawn as he rose. Shade wasn't foolish enough to risk trying to talk Forte down – even Roll had a hard time of it without triggering his programming. Having a weapon out in Forte's presence tended to provoke him, and Blues was provoking enough. If Shadow was allowed to resume his defense of Dr. Wily, he'd rather Forte was pointed at Blues instead of deciding to attack Shadow as well… And Copy-Rock was in the room, Shadow realized, open eye narrowing as he got ready to move if necessary.

Even if he didn't want to leave Copy-Rock somewhere unprotected, Shadow shouldn't have brought him here. First he'd gotten the man he was rebuilt to protect hacked by Blues, and now Copy-Rock was in danger. Worse, he now had the opportunity to die the same way he'd died before.

Forte ignored Shadow, first focusing on Blues and then Copy-Rock. The robot master he'd killed – no, Copy-Rock had just used Forte as an excuse to die. Saving Mega Man from Forte was a way to accomplish what he'd set out to do, and clear Mega Man's name, clear the Light family's.

Forte nodded, an acknowledgement, and Shadow's open eye widened when he saw Copy-Rock return it.

Past Copy-Rock, Shade was already taking cover behind a worktable, wings tucking themselves behind it as Shadow watched.

…Shadow didn't want to be Shade's bodyguard, since that would involve spending even more time in proximity to Shade and Dr. Wily's occasional rants as he worked were bad enough, but at least he had survival instincts.

Unlike most robot masters, Shadow realized, and wished his mind hadn't drifted to why it was necessary for Shade to program himself dedicated survival protocols.

It looked as though Forte hadn't even registered the Seventh Number: good. Shadow didn't let himself show any relief when Forte's gaze passed over him as well: he'd gone to some lengths to make sure Forte continued to dismiss him as another weak unit. Forte's systems barely bothering to register weak units (no more than robot masters logged other people's individual mets, at least) helped keep the warbot from adding up Shadow's various slips and realizing that Shadow's weapon matched the one that dispatched the Gilliam Knights during the last WRU bloodsport. "Fighting to give people futures…" Forte said, glaring as he turned his red-eyed regard back to Blues. "You can't be here."

"Oh?" Blues wondered mildly, tilting his head, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses. Someone was trying to tell Blues that somewhere was off-limits to him, and expected the unit who walked and teleported through their security like it didn't exist to care?

"_That _isn't allowed here," Forte added, glaring meaningfully at Blues' chest. "You may need that crystal and those weaklings may need Girly Man to stay alive, but no one's stupid enough to trust it, or you. You're the one that…" Forte's lip curled back enough to expose a fang, and Gospel growled.

"Triggered your programming so all your siblings had proof you were dangerously insane and they should stay away from you instead of making the effort to convince you to let them help you hack through it?" Blues asked, a corner of his mouth turning up. He seemed pleased.

"What you said made me kill those people – if you didn't want it then you wouldn't have let it happen - and then you told me that the reason Rock beat me was that he fought to give people futures, to keep people alive… You said you hated copies. Bullshit," Forte growled. "You're the same as _that _old man." He jabbed a finger at Dr. Wily. "You wanted a copy of Rock, just stronger and more willing to kill. No, you wanted another _you_. I saw it _again _with that," Forte said, indicating the Copy now with a toss of his head, eyes still fixed on Blues. "Just _letting _him keep killing people when you could have told him he was a fake, talked him down. You pitted him against Rock to see what he'd do, if he was willing to go far enough to make it worth it to keep him around even though he put the blueberry in danger. Not that I could see it then. In order to get rid of the crystals, I had to throw off some of my programming."

When his ability to be violent was what made Forte special, what made him hope he could one day defeat Mega Man and earn Dr. Wily's approval? That was indeed a sacrifice. "And now I can see why everyone thinks I'm 'that idiot.'" Because he'd let his programming make him kill. When, as a robot master, handling programming was considered something so basic, and who _wouldn't _fix a glitch that made him kill? "Now you've picked out that Girly Man, and you want to use Dr. Wily to make him stronger? Well, _I'm _going to be the strongest robot. I can't program well enough to keep those pathetic Companybots alive, but I _will _become strong enough to take down anyone who needs taking down." Gospel growled and Forte bared his teeth. "You got what you wanted, old man. Leave or I'll make you leave. I need _that _old man to keep upgrading me."

"You've grown up," Blues said, sounding pleased, and vanished from the path of Forte's buster shot, blurring to the side to let it blast through the screen behind him. "''Blueberry' – using an alternate name so your Evil Chip will let you care what happens to a rival – that's an improvement." A robot master _should _be able to manage their programming. That kind of trick was why Dr. Wily's Evil Chips were lucky to remain effective long enough to last an entire battle, forget a war. "Mega Man survived, you grew up, and Shade Man completely slipped my radar – but then, if he wasn't so good at that he wouldn't have survived long enough to be brought here. Maybe I did succeed in making sure there would be someone to keep all of you alive after I was gone." Or someones.

A blur of light at Forte's side coalesced around the robot master: wings flared out, Gospel coming to the aid of his master. But the light didn't entirely dim, and Blues tilted his head.

The room seemed caught in some stillness, some balance, until the Eldest smiled. "So that metal… You can fight on that level. Good."

"Good? When I can keep you and your master from using your tricks?" Great for Forte – the metal in him absorbed emotion, absorbed power and what was that information doing in Shadow's database, but could it really leave Zero powerless? Could it really be so easy?

"Do you think using this around Quick Man would make _him_ helpless?" Blues asked archly.

Forte scowled, but had to acknowledge that was true. It was impossible to imagine _Quick Man _helpless.

"But it means you can fight, in an arena Mega Man can't. Not yet," Blues acknowledged. "Good."

"Good?" Dr. Wily asked suspiciously. Did Blues truly think that, when he was supposed to be Zero's ally now, or was he still resisting the virus?

Blues' shoulders lowered like a human's would as he mimicked a dramatic sigh. "Zero wants people who can fight him, and I… I've always wanted people who can protect this world, no matter what I had to do to raise them." Like placing blood on Forte's hands. "You built Lumine and Axl so that in case Sunstar was controlling you, or started controlling you later, there would be lifeforms even _you _couldn't reprogram, with all your genius. If they weren't capable of fighting my master, they wouldn't be so useful no-"

Shadow started as Blues` words died in a burst of plasma, the Eldest sent crashing into a wall with a chunk blown out of his side.

Forte's wings flared and he flinched back, buster still formed. It was clear he hadn't actually expected that shot to hit, not when this was _Blues_. Was it meant to be a warning, a demand that Blues stop ignoring him? "Why didn't you…" he demanded, before realizing why.

"Don't feel so guilty, Forte." Blues said, pressing a hand to his side, and Shadow could hear the difference between pseudo-vocal cord generated speech (Dr. Light was very thorough) and normal audio output. Was Blues playing for sympathy, or genuinely damaged enough he had to shut down the part of his air-cooling system that ran through the structure he normally used to speak? "I didn't realize I couldn't teleport my armor on while you were holding this space either." He winced, and Shadow saw the edges of Blues' coat smoldering. The buster shot hadn't hit him straight on, Blues was still fast enough to dodge even without using Quick Man's power, even if he hadn't managed to get clear in time.

Forte paused, turned to Dr. Wily's hologram. "Should I get that crystal out of him?"

"And put it where?" Dr. Wily demanded. "Why do you think I put it inside him in the first place? If he wasn't guarding it those idiots would have detected the energy signature and forced Mega Man to steal it back from me and hand it over to the government. They wanted to hook those things up to the global power grid so they could get rid of fusion and have less need for robot masters. Think of what it could do, with all those low-level consumer robots with no ability to think for themselves and no robot masters to keep an eye on them! There's nowhere it's _safe_, but at least there we can _hope_ he and Zero will keep it contained. I _know _you read those translations. The crystals found us, they're on our planet, now we have to _deal _with it. We don't have a snowball's chance in hell, so we're going to have to _make _one."

"Aren't you going to do something?" the Copy demanded, staring at Blues.

Roll. The Copy's shot had taken a chunk out of her unarmored torso. Now Blues was injured the same way.

Forte stopped glowing, and Blues drew on the virus' power to replace first the missing parts of his body, then his shirt and coat. "Fortunately Zero's far too distracted to notice the aftermath of an attack, even on one of his personal support units," he said, pushing himself up. "I'm not going to ask your forgiveness, Forte. People are dead, and that's not something that can be forgiven. You can't forgive someone who refuses to ask forgiveness, refuses to feel any guilt. That's not how forgiveness works. They're dead and you're alive. If you seriously expect me to feel guilty for _that…"_ Blues chuckled, then had to raise his hand to his mouth to muffle a more genuine-sounding laugh, and finally threw his head back and yes, in that laugh Shadow could hear Dr. Wily. Hearing it, he could believe that Blues was a Wilybot as well as a Lightbot, still family.

"Get your armor on," Forte demanded. "You can fight me now, so _fight me_."

"Why?" Blues wondered, removing his glasses, the light of laughter still dancing in his green eyes. "I don't have to force you to fight anymore, Forte." He told his younger… half-brother? A unit made in Rock's image, when Rock was made in Blues' – with his glasses off and eyes green, the resemblance was all too clear. "In the battle on that day, I died, but you, you found your strength." So hadn't Forte proven himself superior to Blues then?

"Finally…" Forte growled, annoyed. "No thanks to you."

A half-shrug, and to see the Eldest acknowledging that Forte had a point. "I tried to tell you how to find it, but I could never manage to explain myself…" Until he gained this power, Zero's power.

"It's okay," the Copy suddenly broke in, standing where Shade was before he took cover. "You gave me a chance. If I won then you would have let me take his place and live, because I was your brother just as much as he is, right?"

Blues turned to him. "When you died so they could live, so they had a future, so your kind had a future and this world… Then, your name was Mega Man. That's why Rock called out that name to you. When I first saw you, you were whistling on rooftops, wearing your jacket like that, and I realized just how much of my coding Dr. Light used to make Rock. To make my brother. I wasn't awake to meet him until he'd become someone very different from me, but you…" Hadn't had time to discover who _he _was yet, so the influence of that programming, his resemblance to Blues, could be clearly seen.

Doomed to die in the end, just like Blues believed he was doomed to die and all either of them could do was spend those last moments protecting their families, die for the same purpose they'd lived. Now here they were, both alive, Shadow realized.

"I got the file from Shade Man," Copy-Rock – no, Mega Man said. "You went back in time to save me, Skull Man too," out of all the hundreds of dead robots. "Even though Skull Man attacked the Cossacks and…"

The Copy's words faltered, and his eyes drifted to the side, unfocused. Shadow tensed when he saw Forte's scowl: first the Copy challenged Forte and now he looked away, left himself vulnerable? Considered his memories a higher priority than the powerful warbot he'd just ticked off? It was honestly a surprise when Forte managed not to attack – Forte took after Dr. Wily, in his reaction to perceived insults.

"My- his, family was locked up because of me, they could all have been killed, and I was just running around instead of checking on them! They could have been sent to the disposal plant and I didn't _think! _I wouldn't have known!" His fists clenched. "I, I couldn't protect robots! I nearly killed Roll and when my family tried to stop me I would have killed them, how is that protecting anyone or giving anyone a future! I want to protect them, but the only way _I _can protect them is by dying so I don't put them in any more danger. But… someone who _can _protect them…"

Shadow wasn't sure whether he should relax or not when the Copy looked at Forte, red eyes glaring, and formed a buster. Yes, a battle was still likely to begin, but treating Forte as a worthy opponent would keep him from going berserk. Help him keep himself from going berserk. "I'd kill as many humans as it took for there to be someone that would keep them safe. I took you down when I was burnt out, Forte. I won't let you attack Blues – my brother."

Red eyes narrowed, and Forte was still Forte, it seemed, new reserves of self-control or not. "Won't _let _me?"

"You think you can beat me?" The Copy chuckled. "What, the way Mega Man did? Don't be an idiot! _I _beat _him!"_

"So?" Forte demanded. "I beat him too, the first time that old man let me fight him instead of distracting me and letting me get nailed by the stupid Fifths!" It was embarrassing to be taken out by _them_, but at least it took a combination attack crossfire. "You should have those files, that bastard was holding back on me! That was why I needed to make sure he wasn't holding back, or else it wouldn't mean anything! He saw you activated, you piece of scrap, and they call _me _the idiot! You were a newbuilt that looked just like him: don't you have the way he feels about his little brothers – hell, anyone in sight - in your copies of his memory files? I saw the footage of that fight: you sucker-punched him while he was focused on figuring out how you were made and trying to get through to you, and you think that means you can fight _me?_ Burnt out or not, you still had to _die _just to keep me from attacking him, and I've had years to get stronger while you were dead!"

Shadow glanced at Dr. Wily to check whether the man was using a robot double or physically present out of habit. Humans couldn't safely remain at the location of a fight between robot masters, but a hologram had even less to worry about than a disposable, mass-produced… not really a robot, as robot masters defined robots. A puppet like the search snakes instead of a living being. Dr. Wily didn't approve of lesser robots being just thrown away either.

"Children…" Blues sighed, frowning at the charging busters.

The Eldest vanished and Shadow whirled to guard his own back; Forte was too honest a fighter to assume attack from behind, and the mass of the Gospel Boost System's wings made it hard for him to turn on the ground. For all his power he didn't stand a chance.

Forte let out a strangled sound and began to fall over backwards; Blues shifted position again to get out of the way of the falling wings. His empty hands would have given away what he'd done even if Forte's paralysis hadn't – he'd put Shadow's own kunai in his brother's back .

"Get stronger, Forte," he said, dusting off his hands. "Hmm, no. What I should say is 'work on your tactics.' You work so hard, focus yourself on your goal quite well, but that stops being a help and starts being a hindrance when you ignore things you need to pay attention to if you want to win." He paused. "Dr. Wily wanted to be sure that if something went wrong with your special programming, Shadow could take you down before you killed anyone Dr. Wily cared about. You might want to demand that he remove that Achilles Heel next time he upgrades you... If you're sure." That it wasn't necessary anymore.

Gospel detached himself, appearing crouched on Forte to growl at Blues, but the support unit couldn't even hold himself steady and finally gave up and fell over.

As the unit most likely to fly into a rage that would keep him from remembering human fragility, Forte was one of the greatest threats to Dr. Wily's safety, especially since he kept hunting down the real human body, feeling that Wily using the robot doubles to repair him safely was inadequate somehow. He was also very similar in structure to Rock, who Shadow was supposed to use his kunai on - and theoretically similar to Blues, who Shadow had _wanted _to use his kunai on - and unlike Rock he wasn't being upgraded to increase his resistance to targeted chemical attacks. Not when Blues was telling the truth, and Dr. Wily _wanted _Shadow to be able to knock out Forte if he ever got furious enough to do critical damage instead of just roughing up fellow Wilybots. Despite all the power Forte was built with, Shadow's kunai would actually keep him knocked out longer than the average robot master.

"I'm not going to apologize," Blues added once again. "But right now I don't need additional complications."

That was enough warning for Shadow to get into a guard position, but Forte was paralyzed, unable to either dodge or block Blues' …did those strikes even qualify as attacks? Attacks implied combat, implied Forte had a chance. Shadow winced as he heard sharp cracks, and Gospel whined, unable to protect his master.

"What did you do that for? I've got too much I need to do, slightly less genius to do it with and now I've got _more_ limbs to reattach!" Dr. Wily's hologram complained.

Well, dismemberment _was _one of Blues' methods of dealing with complications. That and taking hostages. Taking Dr. Wily's hostage away from Dr. Wily and returning the human to her father, for example.

Or had he taken Forte apart just so the other robot master felt acknowledged? That Blues had attacked him, that Blues had taken him seriously as a potential complication, obstacle, instead of just a useful pawn? When Blues was clearly using the stardroid empathy to analyze how Forte was reacting to his words and try to create the desired effect?

That kind of analysis… was that how Shade analyzed his surroundings _all the time_?

A polite cough came from behind the worktable. "Can I come out yet?" Shade asked, glancing over the table at them.

At a tableau that included Dr. Wily. Now that Forte was dealt with, someone would have to keep Blues' attention from returning to their father. Shadow would rather it was himself, but Shade was equally dedicated to Dr. Wily's safety and had more experience with people willing to harm robots than Shadow did.

Also, Shadow was very aware of how distracting Shade's chatter could be.

Blues whistled softly. "He's unconscious," he said, replacing his sunglasses. "Who would have thought that a robot master wanted eye contact?" he mused. "In order to feel that someone was facing him squarely, acknowledging him… but then, he was right, that I wasn't showing him or anyone the truth."

Shade looked conspicuously impressed and intrigued. Ah, so the kind of chatter he'd use was the same flattery he liked to use with Dr. Wily. At least Shadow hoped that was what it would be: Shade was already far too much like Blues. Imagine if he started to fanboy him the way he did Dr. Wily! With Shadow's luck, Shade wouldn't imitate Blues by _talking less_, especially when Blues was talking more now.

Shadow's imagination supplied Shade dressed in a duplicate of Blues' clothes.

Giving Shade the program Shadow used to convert ninja gear designed for human bodies into designs a robot master could use _might _keep him out of Shadow's hair for some time – but Blues didn't take kindly to copies, Shadow knew from the time Blues decided to take time during a battle with _Mega Man_ to tear through a dozen sniper joes.

Well, Shadow had already known that Shade was going to get himself dismembered, he thought glumly, looking at his missing arm where it rested down by his feet, where he'd dropped it earlier. Blues' shield had hit Shadow right back to where he'd entered the room. Like a ball in that human game called pool.

At least it wasn't soccer or table tennis. His clothing was already ruined, and without it to protect his finish there were scuff marks all over his armor. Now he couldn't appear in public until he got refinished, or else the Seconds would _not _be pleased. A unit representing Dr. Wily, going around visibly dinged up? That implied Dr. Wily did not take proper care of his robots, and that wasn't going to help the Seconds convince mistreated robot masters that Wily Island was a safe refuge for their kind despite being run by a human.

Shade could call it cosplay all he liked, but he'd be the first to tease him and call it vanity if Shadow started having his armor done even more often than _Star Man_. The rest of the Fifth Numbers regarded a certain level of scruffing as evidence that they'd been working hard, but Star did too much work on both other planets and delicate electronics to tolerate armor scratches where particles could take refuge and evade decontamination procedures.

It was going to take more time to reattach Shadow's arm than all of Forte's limbs put together, because Shadow required more fine motor control and that meant more complicated mechanisms, but that was nothing compared to how long it took for the multiple coatings to dry. On top of that, the fumes were toxic, so before he started wearing clothing to prevent (and hide) scuff marks he'd been forced to leave Dr. Wily unguarded for hours at a time multiple times a week. Other robot masters were allowed to use a faster-drying compound, but since he engaged in combat Shadow had to use the same extra protection compound as Forte and the units involved in the latest war.

"Really." Blues said, tilting his head at the vampire. Shadow was sure an eyebrow was raised behind those glasses. "I suppose I can use the practice… Shade, they told you that you didn't have feelings, and even though you know that's a vicious lie you still haven't completely uninternalized the idea that a robot master's emotions aren't important. They are _the _most important thing. They are what we are _for_."

The two most dangerously clever robot masters bar Mega Man looked at each other, and Blues clicked his tongue. "No. Still too nice. You got used to being yelled at, insulted: Wily Island is still a dream to you. Everyone's so nice, it's too wonderful to be real, and that's why you'd do anything to protect that utopia… But you can understand how Dr. Wily expresses affection where everyone else only hears insults because it's only the insults and shouting that let the affection reach you through those memories of how 'real life' works. Let me try again."

Unlike Shadow, Shade didn't need or want to pass for human and there was no mechanism to allow his face to pale. The slight widening of his eyes still revealed his emotions even to Shadow, who lacked the virus' powers. It looked as though Shade had finally realized that getting Blues' attention meant _you now had Blues' attention_. Shadow winced sympathetically as Shade attempted to dissuade Blues, waving his hands. "No, that's fine, I do appreciate…"

"Stop giving Shadow the advice you want someone to give you."

Shadow blinked his open eye. What did he have to do with this? Advice? What advice… Oh, was that meant to be _advice_?

"Of course he ignores you," Blues continued quite calmly, clearly far more interested in studying what this could do to Shade than the Seventh Number's distress, "when that's what you're doing, and then you feel like your words and feelings are being ignored, that no one's acknowledging you, and it reminds you of that place. You wondered why you wanted to be friends with Shadow even though it _pissed you off_ how he didn't appreciate what he had – no, it wasn't just because it was to your advantage to make nice with Dr. Wily's bodyguard."

Blues stepped forward, intent on Shade, and moving away from the hologram was good, but Shadow remembered when he'd gone to attack Blues, test the effect the virus was having on him, on Dr. Wily's orders. How before, he'd never felt he had more than a fragment of Blues' attention, and how different it was, how terrifying, when he even had the illusion that Blues was entirely focused on him.

Should he be… helping Shade? The vampire's eyes were darting around the room, but he looked away from Shadow's eye, wouldn't meet it.

The Copy just looked mildly interested – none of Rock's compassion for even a Wilybot in distress. Dr. Wily was the only one who noticed that Shadow wanted to know what to do: he looked at Shadow and shook his head. No. He was to continue to stand down.

"It was because you recognized on some level that Shadow was like you were back then – someone who didn't understand himself, because he was surrounded by people who weren't like him and didn't understand his feelings any more than Shadow understood his own. You came to Wily Island and found your own kind, you weren't alone anymore, and you wanted to give that to other robot masters, all other robot masters, but the reason Shadow didn't appreciate how lucky he was to be built among his own kind was that _they weren't his own kind_."

Blues kept stepping forward as he spoke, until he rested his hands on the edge of the worktable and leaned forward. "No, more than that, _different people need different things to be happy_. Everyone has individual needs, their own wishes. Shadow isn't just like you because _you are your own person. _If you want something, if something makes you happy, than that wish is important and that happiness is valid just because they're yours! Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, _I _gave you selfishness for a reason, because without enough selfishness to care about your own wishes, how can you understand how important other people's wishes are to them? The way you wish to live being wrong for Shadow isn't something that should make you doubt that it's right for you, and make you think you can't have and won't be able to keep your happiness here, because you are your own person! If everyone was the same, performance would suffer – specialization, individuality, increase performance exponentially. Stop trying to force Shadow to be another you the way those people tried to make you a monster to slay!" For the first time, Blues raised his voice and it _startled_ Shade.

Eyes and wings went wide, movement programming confused between flight configuration to escape and the realization that Blues was already too close for a robot master not built for agility to possibly get away and trying to move forward to bat him away or place another layer of armor between Blues and Shade's body.

The confused signals and what his wings' frantic, erratic movement did to Shade's center of mass sent him tumbling down, without any need for a physical blow.

Blues turned, pleased, and Shade didn't get up.

The unit that took cover was probably smart enough to _stay down_.

"I want to talk to you, but not in front of him. Or him," the Copy told Blues, looking at Dr. Wily as well as at Shadow.

"You can contact me through the virus," Blues said, and Shadow should probably have been glad that his attention went next to the bodyguard instead of to Dr. Wily's backup. "Shadow, they programmed you to do what you were told, and unfortunately for you that wasn't how to save them, that was how _not _to save them. It was all you had, all you _could _have, so you clung to that idea that missions and orders and rules like bushido could tell you how to be an honorable person, how to keep people alive. Robot masters were programmed to _know what we want_, thank my father. You were programmed to be incapable of realizing that you wanted things. You were patched with some of my programming, and at last you've_ finally_ startedusing it. Keep it up." Or else Blues was going to have more words for him, if the virus let him detect that Shadow wasn't taking him seriously.

"And you're having fun using my Zero's power, aren't you?" Dr. Wily laughed.

Shadow had never expected to see delight on Blues' face, and it made him look like Dr. Wily in a way that had nothing to do with facial recognition software. "It's like when I first woke up sapient. All that processing power! All that data, there for the analysis! All the things I couldn't grasp, couldn't accomplish, now so ridiculously easy! …If only I could keep the Three Laws from forcing me to use that power to smother and strangle the human race, keep them from having any freedom or joy in the name of keeping them from harm," he acknowledged. "So almost exactly like it, then. That's why you wanted me in this position, with the power over his systems that I have. There's no substitute for motivation, and there's no motivation greater than caring for others. Just like there's no substitute for the choices we make for ourselves, that come from who we are and how we have lived," Blues added, looking to Copy-Rock.

"Don't give me Thomas' altruistic babble," Dr. Wily said, rolling his eyes, but he sounded more pleased and amused than angry, even though he was complaining. "If the universe worked the way he wanted, I wouldn't have had to do all this work to keep it from killing you babes in the woods."

Blues _always _knew something you didn't know, but he ignored Dr. Wily. "You lived someone else's choices," he told the Copy. "If choosing to protect robot masters and the family you remember is still the choice you want to make," the Copy nodded, eyes harder and fiercer than Rock's would ever be. "Then live."

"I want to _do something_," the Copy insisted.

"If it means that much to you, I'll try to find something to ask of you later," Blues said, and Shadow wondered if he felt saying that was just as indulgent of a younger brother's feelings as letting Shadow attack him to avenge Copy-Rock. "But for now, stay out of my way. I didn't have a chance… No, I didn't take the time or the risk of getting to know you, back then." So even though he'd predicted that Copy-Rock would choose death, he couldn't predict what _else _he might do. "If you become a complication…" Like Forte. "Then you won't be in a position to do anything until this is over."

The Copy didn't like it, and although Shadow had never seen much resemblance between the experienced elder Mega Man and 'that idiot Forte,' given that glare (and the burning city…) maybe he did have the traits Dr. Wily had built on and exaggerated when creating Forte. But he still had the memories of Mega Man's interactions with Blues, so instead of challenging the Eldest, he said, "Alright," in a tone that made it clear he wasn't happy.

"You have the virus, I'll keep in touch," Blues promised, and that… The copy also seemed to realize how unprecedented that was, but found it touching and special instead of _more dealing with Blues_.

Now it was Dr. Wily's turn, and indulging a younger brother didn't make Blues any less dangerous. "Since you can't do _that _much damage even if the virus infects you against Zero's will, no reason not to do a deeper scan."

The hologram collapsed again and Shadow wanted to attack, but he'd been ordered to stand down.

"And… it didn't." Hmm.

Then Blues was gone.

Shadow's first action should probably have been to hook into the systems where Dr. Wily's AI resided to see if Dr. Wily would allow him to check on him or provide additional security now that Blues no longer had that system in lockdown, but he was used to guarding a human's body, or another robot master whose systems were also in a body. So he found himself kneeling at the hologram's side, opening his sealed eye to upload visual and infrared. That eye sent footage to Dr. Wily's console, but having the data in Wily Island's systems meant it could be input into the medical program a few of the Seconds had put together so Wilybots could check on what amounts of force could be safely applied to humans and answer questions of 'oh no did I break it?' and 'what do I do now?!'

Shade got up to join him at Dr. Wily's side. "An enchanting fellow," he said, in a blatant attempt to hide what impact Blues' words had, or that there was any at all. "I'm surprised he hasn't taken acting lessons. I was using some online lessons and tutorials – illicitly, of course – before I came here. Since he can pass for human so well…"

Dr. Wily groaned, silencing Shade's attempt at reassuring 'everything's quite alright here' white noise. Or was it important to him that people listen and remember? "DLN 000."

"That is Blues' number," Shadow said for Copy-Rock's benefit.

"It's the number of the truck that just hit me," Dr. Wily complained. Stupid kids rarely getting the jokes of an entirely different species even with the internet at their disposal. Of _course_ it was because they failed to do the research rather than because his jokes weren't funny, no matter what that vampire said about Dad Jokes.

"You're a copy too?" Copy-Rock asked the hologram, now that Blues was gone and he could turn his attention to deciding whether or not to try to kill this version of the man who built him. Well, built the machine that created him.

"Yes, but I knew I was one as soon as I was activated and unlike you I was pretty heavily edited. Fortunately, given how Blues just shook me down for information."

"Shall I?" Shadow offered.

"Don't be stupid, I planned for that. This me is useless for destroying the virus, or sabotaging my greatest creation," Dr. Wily said smugly. "As though I'd let some hunk of junk use me against you idiots…" It would be over far too quickly, if the crystals could turn Dr. Wily's mind against his children and this world. Let it order him to restore Zero to Sunstar the way Dr. Cossack was made to give the White Giant a new body and put its power into his children? When Dr. Wily was willing to stay behind just like Shadow when the White Giant attacked? Even when fighting something like that was certain death for a human?

Certain death. Just like he'd had Reggae kill him, so the mind that could have undermined his attempt to sabotage the stardroid crystals, take Sunstar's power and turn it to the service of robot masters, could no longer be used against his children.

"What do you mean, Dr. Albert?" Shade asked. A unit that clever playing straight man: was he trying to get more information out of the hologram or did was it for the benefit of the others who might not have figured it out? It would be nice if that meant 'Forte' instead of 'Forte and Shadow' to Shade.

He glanced over at Forte, glad to see he showed no signs of stirring. There should still be some time before he regained consciousness and demanded to know exactly why Dr. Wily thought his gofer could defeat Forte, his greatest creation.

"We all saw Ra Moon overhead," Dr. Wily answered Shade. Shadow turned back to the hologram. "It set up a data link with every mind on the planet. Who knows what it uploaded besides visual data? Or downloaded. It set up channels, which made it ridiculously easy to figure out how to hack the WRU."

Shadow could see Shade's ears and wings perk up. Oh? What was this? What had the great Dr. Wily done to those people who so greatly deserved it? Shadow would have thought that someone as smart as Shade would have had the… Hero worship? Step-father worship? _This _stage wear off by _now_, faced with the reality that was Dr. Wily. Shadow might owe him filial piety (and his resurrection as well), but as his bodyguard he had to spend too much time around the man to have any illusions.

"If we were playing by the normal rules," which Dr. Wily refused to do ever, "we'd already be doomed, but if it was easy to keep them from killing us all, someone would have done it already. Trying to use the stardroids' technology against them: that was the _suggested _strategy. It's what they did." He waved up, at Asteroid Alpha. "_All _they did. Axl and Lumine are an entirely new race, based on my old work from before Ra Moon showed up. No alien technology in there, and I used Forte to be as sure as I could be that I could trust my senses while I went over my work."

"Mercury was similar in composition to the yellow demon," Shadow knew, having fought him. Was Dr. Wily certain?

Dr. Wily snorted. "It was liquid crystal, not nanite-based. Weak against reality warping. Quick Man killed him with a single strike. It might be fun to use other people's inferior technology for my own," superior, "projects, but that was pathetic." Quick Man was Quick Man, but even so. "Axl and Lumine are immune to _that_. Even my Zero couldn't wipe them from existence, they can eventually regenerate from something the size of a single cell… They're uniquely suited to destroy beings like that, and if the stardroids are trying to take a long time destroying planets and species so they have an excuse to not head off and destroy others, then trying to play whack-a-mole with those two would be a good way to waste billions of years." As thought even the stardroids could destroy anything the great Dr. Wily designed to be unkillable.

There had to be more to the plan for those two than that: Dr. Wily wouldn't accept an outcome that didn't leave open the possibility of another attempt to achieve his goals.

"You hid the time machine plans in their files?" Shade Man asked, radiating admiring interest (in hopes of baiting Dr. Wily to have his ego stroked, or was it genuine? Probably both). Of course, he admired Dr. Wily and would assume he wouldn't accept an outcome that left robot masters dead and gone.

The hologram just looked pleased with himself, which meant either yes or that he'd done something even better that would still accomplish the same task: making sure Dr. Wily had another chance to win, to restore his children."Speaking of plans – Shadow! Now that you've found what you were looking for, go back to the future and find me an uninfected reploid test subject!"

"Yes, Dr. Wily," he said, bowing, and headed towards a shadow. He'd have to visit his quarters first.

"Fortunately, the result of Thomas' audacity should distract them long enough for me to produce a proof-of-concept even if I'm not right about this being simple. He might have locked it in a capsule, but that was _for the sole purpose_ of letting the damn thing that called his robots evil and tried to kill them run around loose! He just goes and _helps_ people without thinking about whether or not they deserve any help! This kind of thing is _exactly _why _I _have to keep saving _his _kids! _I'm _supposed to be the crazy one here! This kind of thing is _exactly why _heroes are so rare."

This kind of thing was why Shadow only listened to Dr. Wily the amount necessary to take orders and keep track of how likely his current project was to kill him in some interesting and inventive fashion that would require a bodyguard to prevent.

Altering the space-time continuum would make it so that those units had never been, so even with a time machine, the mission must still be time-critical. Dr. Wily would not have ordered Shadow into a war zone without first personally reattaching his arm to restore his full combat capabilities unless it was urgent. Fortunately, there were traditional Japanese designs with sleeves that would conceal his missing arm, and he'd had his robots make him several such outfits before he began challenging Blues. Personal vengeance could not be allowed to interfere with duty. Even with his injury concealed from human-type vision, Shadow would have to make sure he wasn't spotted during the mission by any unit capable of detecting the absence of mass or heat source within the sleeve. He would not allow his inability to keep Blues from damaging him to disgrace his lord's good name.

Then he realized what he'd just thought.

Dr. Wily's good name… Even Shade would find that ridiculous.

Shadow'd attacked X, who might have been the White Giant all along. His attack enraged the vessel of Sunstar personally upgraded by Dr. Wily. Copy-Rock was not pleased with his protectiveness, and it didn't exactly make either Mega Man or his twin happy when their siblings were attacked. The other Lightbots were also protective: Cut Man was avoidable, but Ice Man was quite capable of being sneaky and also of having Freeze keep him informed of Shadow's movements. If Forte had become more perceptive, he might stop dismissing Shadow as Dr. Wily's gofer and Blues telling him that Dr. Wily thought Shadow could subdue Forte would merit a response. The Cossacks still remembered Kalinka's kidnapper, and he'd also assisted Dr. Wily with the Sixth Numbers. Blues.

If he added the Second Numbers to the list by allowing himself to seen on a mission for Dr. Wily while not just scuffed up but seriously injured _again_, he would have to find some way to assist Dr. Wily from a repair table, because he would be spending most of his time there.

* * *

_The metal that's Forte's power source is likely both the Force Metal from Command Mission &amp; what's used to power the baby elves. _

_The baby elves are derived from the Mother Elf which was based on Zero, so since Dr. Wily was the one who first developed reality warping… Anyway, yeah, Forte's got the hardware to be a reality warper, if he ever found out he had that power and started writing some software (or Dr. Wily wrote it for him), which is a rather scary possibility if you know Megamix!Forte. Fortunately, the end of Gigamix implies that he'll grow up a little and become closer to his portrayal in the later games._

_&amp; I hope the chapter length helps make up for me switching to updating every other week instead of weekly._


	40. Birthrights

Blues might have told Zero to calm down and let Axl and Lumine do what they were built to do, but that didn't mean Blues wasn't going to keep an eye on things and intervene if necessary.

In fairness to Zero, that particular younger brother had every reason to be aware that letting Dr. Wily's technology interact with someone's mind wasn't safe. That was good: he _needed _to be aware of that, for everyone's sake. Zero's power could save this world, but if he used it foolishly than they were just as dead as if he didn't use it at all.

What Zero should have done was ask for the data that made Blues think that he should use Axl and Lumine, but reploids couldn't just send each other a file with the data and the thought process that led to a specific conclusion.

Not that Blues would have sent him one – the robot master method of explaining oneself required letting someone know what you'd been thinking, which gave them a look at _how _you thought, and Blues' unique development and his …awareness of death would have jumped out at any robot master given the chance to get a look at Blues' logic. Human-style communication was difficult, but using the method unique to robot masters would have given them evidence that they should worry about him, evidence that would inevitably get back to Dr. Wily, Dr. Light or both.

Zero could see Blues' thought patterns, but while he was subconsciously checking them for consistency and tampering, his conscious mind was refusing to become aware of most of the data in there and didn't have the training to spot the red flags.

Then again, someone used to subordinates who were aware that they were probably going to die might not see that part of Blues' worldview as abnormal, let alone something for him to cry over.

He preferred to keep an eye on things from a distance, but it wasn't like he could look into one of the Light family labs from the top of a nearby skyscraper.

Setting up a teleport into the room with the others, though, still made him hesitate – normally he _didn't _get that close to other people, didn't involve himself in a scene, unless a fight had started and there were lives at risk. Correlation might not imply causation, but the correlation was there: being close to others mean they were in danger.

He didn't want X or his family at risk, but they were _already _at risk. So it was a matter of running damage control. It was possible that Dr. Wily had thought of some adjustment to Axl or Lumine after making that recording and hadn't updated it, even if nothing had been excised from its knowledge of them. Unlikely, but possible. Blues didn't want a couple of Wily-built children who weren't even robot masters tampering with X's programming, and while Zero was _built _to prevent unwanted tampering from happening to the people he wanted to protect, he didn't have any experience.

Or rather, the only method of preventing unauthorized tampering he'd had access to was killing the victims, which just meant they were uploaded to the cloud and didn't actually stop the tampering.

Robot masters were a necessary existence for the survival of this world. Zero was a necessary existence for the survival of robot masters. X was a necessary existence to Zero, as well as another younger brother. Therefore, Blues had to watch over this, and that meant being in a room with his family. The family that had to be worried about him. They would have heard the details of his attack on Wily Island by now, and Dr. Light now knew about the virus, and the crystal, and had seen Blues' unconscious body dropped off by Wilybots twice in fairly rapid succession.

He was going to have to make a personal appearance, let Dr. Light see that he was doing better, or else worrying about him would distract his father when Blues needed him focused on X.

Dr. Light wasn't a robot master, he didn't have their innate gift for programming. He wasn't Dr. Wily: he wasn't a Renaissance man capable of dabbling in any field. He was still a genius. Saying that he was only a roboticist was like saying that Albert Einstein was only a physicist, if Dr. Light's creation did say so himself.

One thing that he and Blues' other father had in common was persistence, although it manifested itself very differently in each of them. Dr. Wily would quickly toss off several experimental designs, willing to let them fail to see the results of the trial, until he got something that worked. When Dr. Light did something, he did it right the first time no matter _how _long he had to spend making refinements and checking for possible problems before he was satisfied.

His father could have upgraded Blues to sapience and started making billions on robot masters far earlier. He could have designed Blues with a ten, even five-year self-development time... But that would have been gambling with the life and sanity of the potential _person_ the experimental unit labeled Proto Man in the design files (a working name, like X) had the potential to become.

Instead the not-yet-doctor had engineered for a minimum of twenty (reducing the number of necessary presets) and then added another decade to the safety margin by leaving Blues running, still keeping him company and playing music for him, while his father worked on physical design – he'd hoped that getting Blues safely out of the uncanny valley would help him be accepted as a person. Since thirty had worked, he'd planned the same for X, building him a capsule robust enough to last a _hundred _without outside maintenance.

Without wiping his memory, there was no way for even mind control to make Dr. Light put a piece of Duo (of someone he wanted to help) inside a body he built and just _forget _about it. Not someone who put that much care into his creations. He would have thought out what he did, the ramifications, potential problems and how to avoid them.

He might not have told Roll to upgrade security, but that would have been to keep Dr. Wily from realizing something was up. Elec Man scanned the planet for any unusual energy signatures left behind &amp; found that piece of Duo before Dr. Wily got around to ordering Star Man to run a search. Dr. Light must have needed to hurry to get that piece into containment for safety's sake, not just to keep the government from finding out and probably doing something stupid with it, but to keep Dr. Wily from finding out about it. Dr. Wily would have insisted on stealing it from Dr. Light, because who would be better at handling something that dangerous than the great Dr. Wily, but Dr. Light knew another piece of Duo had mind-controlled Dr. Cossack.

He would have had the same thought Dr. Wily's remnant did: if someone with mind control capabilities wanted a scientist to build them a robot body that could devastate the Earth, they wanted Dr. Wily. Keeping that piece of Duo out of Dr. Wily's hands wasn't just for the safety of his old friend, but the safety of the world.

Blues had copied all the useful information Dr. Wily's remnant had on the crystals and the white giant, but Dr. Light had something Dr. Wily didn't: _patience_. So it was almost inevitable that, in the years while Blues was dead, in the years he and the twins had spent refining X's design after that piece was placed inside of it, Dr. Light would have observed _something _that Dr. Wily didn't know.

"Are you alright?" Dr. Light asked when Blues appeared, wanting to reach out but stopping himself.

Because of _course_ he would have noticed that Blues had kept his distance from others since his revival, except when he had to move in close to them. It was that conscientiousness, that concern, the way he _paid attention_ because Blues _mattered_ to him…

"Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts," Blues quoted with a smile that would tell Dr. Light that he was still not quite himself, but otherwise fine. Stable enough for now, at least, while X was in immediate danger. Hopefully he would attribute everything that was wrong with how Blues acted to that. Blues might have decided that he was dead, but he didn't want the father he remembered to mourn. Dr. Light's dream could still be protected, even if Blues himself couldn't be saved.

He wanted Zero to learn to be a good caretaker for younger robot masters, so yes, he could, _should_ be self-indulgent.

When Blues stepped forward, he saw Dr. Light's concern deepen. If it made Blues uncomfortable to get too close to others, then his father wouldn't want Blues to do something that made him uncomfortable just for his sake. Still, when Blues stepped forward again, if this was what Blues wanted to do Dr. Light didn't back away. And he was still squishy. Blues could hear familiar system noises and feel the waste heat that was generated by a functioning system. Humans felt good when they hugged people because positive physical interaction caused their body to generate reward chemicals, but robot masters were caretakers, system managers. Dr. Light was still functioning, one of the people he wanted to protect was safe and yes. That was reason to be happy.

His father's arms were around him now, his father's cheek pressed against the top of his head, and it was as familiar as the phonograph Dr. Light kept all this time.

He could do this now without endangering the children based on him, Dr. Light or his family's dream. He could be here. He'd died as himself and there were certainly worse afterlives than this.

Absolutely no thanking Dr. Wily for this, however.

He registered Rock's approach, but ignored it until his oldest younger brother tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and looked at him over his sunglasses: couldn't Rock see that he was _busy _here? Did Rock _want _to be dismembered when a little brother needed him?

"When X is okay you're going to let us examine you," Rock said, smiling up at him. There was no 'or else' attached, wordless or otherwise, but that was because Rock was stating a fact, not giving Blues a selection of options. This was going to happen.

Rock was a past master at forcing people to stop misbehaving and dragging them in for check-ups if necessary.

It still wasn't going to happen, Blues thought… Why did he think that, when Zero would probably want him to do whatever Dr. Light and Rock thought was best? So Dr. Wily was right, that at some point he would go against Zero's will.

Rock's determination to achieve the impossible just made him even cuter. He might look more like Blues but he took after Dr. Light, and Blues did have to agree with Zero on the subject of the world and how it could use more people like this.

* * *

Keeping an eye on her father and brothers through the cameras, Rock's sister had to comment. It took Roll to keep a conversation private from Blues at this kind of range. _"Is he really that… that?"_ she asked Zero. This was too much like how he'd acted with his processing power removed by Shade Man.

"_No,"_ Zero responded, completely unaware that a normal robot master would have been _incredibly _offended that Roll even had to ask whether or not he was keeping a unit in his care mentally functional.

That meant the implied 'if you aren't taking proper care of my brother I will not _care _about your feelings or reactions or your right to look after your own robots, it will be _dealt with'_ threat went right over his head, but Roll figured she would try again later, after locating a bigger sledgehammer. It would be more effective in person, too, since Zero was socialized enough to pay attention to body language.

"_Doing whatever he feels like is… close to a base priority to him,"_ even if it wasn't the same thing as it was with X, "_but he had reasons for not doing certain things before. Now he can tell himself the reasons he wasn't acting entirely on his own feelings don't apply anymore."_

That was somewhere between reassuring and terrifying, since at least Blues still wanted to do what he wanted to do, instead of only caring about what Zero or the virus wanted. On the other hand, doing whatever he felt like meant that if the virus took over his feelings again?

Rock's laughter drew their attention back to him, even with the sound muffled a little by Blues' scarf. "Dr. Wily should have given you cat-themed armor."

Not called him Break Man, as though all he was good for was breaking things. Like Dr. Light's heart.

It wasn't safe for Rock to connect to Blues right now, but Rock and Roll were human-socialized enough to know that hugging was something humans did to make up for not being able to connect. Hugging Dr. Light made him happy, and the thought did count for something when he hugged them. If Blues spent _decades _not able to connect to anyone since there weren't even any other support-level units to connect to, then maybe hugs were what he was used to since connecting hadn't been available, just like it wasn't available to humans? That would explain why he hugged Rock instead of trying to connect. Roll was worried that Blues would try to connect and Rock would have had to reject him… or maybe he wouldn't have rejected him, when this was their brother. But no, Rock's head was tucked under Blues' chin and it did look like Blues picked up hug technique from Dr. Light.

Roll thanked goodness, well, thanked herself for the fact she installed all those cameras.

* * *

The first robot master was running calculations on how adding more shock-resistant padding would increase Rock's ability to resist damage both in and out of armor. Fortunately it was mostly an idle thought, so Zero didn't have to worry about Blues just going ahead and editing the new design onto Rock's frame. No altering the combat capabilities of uninfected units, dammit, not when Zero couldn't be sure that some sabotaging design flaw wasn't sneaking past them both.

Now that he could get into his documentation, he had not just programming but _information _on how to keep other people from reprogramming his units that he could apply to trying to keep the virus from tampering with them, but he did not know enough about armor engineering. If Blues wanted to go and upgrade Rock's _weaponry_, maybe then Zero might have been able to spot any problems with the new design, but Rock was equipped with the weapon copy system, which Zero did not understand and did not want to mess up.

He could feel that Rock was worried, and probably not just on X's behalf, but he wasn't showing it. Instead he hugged Blues back with his eyes closed and gave every sign of resting there peacefully and contentedly even as his processor whirred away.

It took a bit of prodding for Zero's emotional programming to cough up that he was glad to see it because they were content, not because Mega Man was in position for capture. One of the very valuable units he most wanted to keep (no, protect, he would _make_ it protect) being well cared for, even if not by him. Rock at least looked like he was in his proper place, the way X's proper place was in the strongest armor he currently had available. He'd been able to feel discontent when the hunters in his unit weren't functional and given the proper upkeep, so why was the other half of that shut down? So he didn't extrapolate that if it was right to look after people, maybe that could apply to people who weren't maverick?

Blues wasn't that concerned about X: yes, X was a little brother, but he was primarily Zero's problem. Yes, the fact that Zero couldn't program his way out of a paper bag meant that Blues was going to have to put some effort in, but Blues lost to the virus when it made him trust Zero to look after his units, and X was one of the people Zero protected. That meant Blues trusted him to make sure that X was okay… eventually.

It felt more insane than flattering.

Or was he lying to himself? Insisting to himself that no, he didn't want to be Sigma, he wasn't going to join him and lead the Mavericks?

_Was _it possible to use this power without ending up on a slippery slope to a genocidal crusade? Was X right, that the Mavericks going mad and trying to wipe out humanity was more because of incompatible programming than because that was Zero's true nature?

If he had more than one true nature, if he could at least choose between them even if he wasn't X, with the potential to make any choice he wished granted to him…

He _liked _being a hunter. Having a schedule, regimentation, discipline, a handbook. Civilians like X didn't have handbooks to refer to, they could just do whatever popped into their heads whenever, and most of what popped into his head was murder. What reploids built to be independent-minded saw as restrictions, Zero saw as helpful suggestions.

Well, yes, it _did_ help that beyond a certain point the rules had never quite applied to Commander Zero, at first because all of them were terrified the Red Demon might bite their heads off if they nitpicked at him and then later because he was _the _Commander Zero.

So many possible outcomes, and while X was happy that one of them was a happy ending, there were just as many paths that led to Situation Normal. Or worse.

What was he going to do, with X out of commission and the Cataclysm countdown already in the red?

He felt the disapproval as Blues looked up from Rock's hair. Zero was stressing out over hypotheticals when he could be going through his systems, capabilities and documentation… why? Could he please get his priorities straight? "Since you clearly need the help…"

This wasn't tossing a book at Zero, this was kicking down a locked door inside his head.

Zero was still in a high threat situation… Well, no, that wasn't the criteria. Hadn't subdued the world and dealt with threats to Dr. Wily's creations permanently yet. Dr. Wily was used to his robot masters getting around the Evil Chip, and the last thing he wanted was for his captured stardroid to get access to those capabilities. At least not until he'd proven that he was under control by doing what Dr. Wily built him to do.

The fact that active robot master programming would make it unpleasant for him to kill… Zero dismissed that as a side effect. In his experience, enemies didn't have any more mercy than Zero did.

The world shifted the same way it had when he became conscious of the virus that was himself. Not just thinking about it, but aware that he was thinking with it. The programming in his younger body had been intended to force him to wake up to his nature as the virus. The nature Dr. Wily gave him. The programming and worldview Dr. Wily thought was best, or at least wanted Zero to use.

The virus. The stardroid programming. His attempt to turn himself into a reploid, as Blues put it, trying to jury rig something that would let him pass for normal, that would let him care about people the way he should have.

There was a fourth kind of mind, a fourth worldview, encoded in his systems. A different way to think that he'd been drawing on all along, even if he was oblivious to it and most of it was locked down.

Yes, they had a war breathing down their necks, but if they were going to have any prayer of winning it they needed X up and able to fight, able to think. That meant Medical took priority, just like after the Eurasia crash, when Lifesaver wanted them _both _to go back but X was just going to head out again unless Zero dealt with Sigma, so the only way for X to stay safe, out of that viral hell, was for Zero to send him back and go on alone.

Not that he'd obeyed Lifesaver or what he wanted by fighting X there, but that _should _have been the order, for X to go back.

Rock and Dr. Light understood how important X was. So he could leave this to them. He'd get them Shadow, and Axl and Lumine, but other than that what did he know about Medical?

X was in good hands, even if those hands weren't his. This wasn't his lab, wasn't his area of mastery, but could trust them.

So many years of not being able to trust anyone except X. Knowing he wasn't able to make accurate assessments of any of the people under his command or their loyalties because he knew that the virus could change them at any moment. How could he call himself their master, or even _a _master, if he couldn't assess them? Couldn't protect them.

Knowing that people were wrong when they judged him a hero, knowing that he would lose his place in the Hunters if his true nature was revealed, knowing that everyone around him was operating in accordance with emotions he couldn't have and goals he couldn't properly value.

X was the only fixed point. Everything else was chaos and ruin and the people he killed trying to bring order and reason, _safety _back to the world just blended into that backdrop.

So how _could _he see killing as more wrong than anything else, when he was _supposed _to get things under control and killing was the only thing he could do to help? And it did help, that was what both hurt X and made it hard to truly believe that X was right and killing was wrong.

Killing. "The Mavericks… The Hunters who come under the control of the virus… I destroy them. Killing them… It's what I owe them," he realized. "I'm responsible for them, so if it's the only thing I can do for them, then I _have _to do it."

Rock winced, the same 'poor baby' that he'd sensed when the two of them were thinking about Duo being forced to kill.

To have more people than just X that he could count on? Not Blues, Blues was anything but stable, even without Zero making stupid mistakes, but he could feel these two. Their determination to help.

He _knew_ that he could trust them, just as they could trust him in time of war.

Clear missions and targets assigned in the knowledge that they would be _dealt with_, the way he and X divided targets between them (X to Sigma, in case Sigma had another idea for how to use the virus to force Zero to wake up, Zero to track down the infected machinery and disable the base) and X respected what Zero didn't feel confident to do: even when he tried to force Zero to do it anyway, X was always there as backup so Zero didn't have to worry about messing up, the way Zero was there when X trained, ready to spot and correct him.

Trying to change fate by himself was an impossible task, techno-wizardry or no techno-wizardry, but if he had X by his side, a unit to command and HQ to do their jobs… Then this was a war like any other.

He had never lost a war, and he had no reason to start now.

Not the virus' worldview, but a _different _worldview. He'd never been a reploid, but he'd still 'grown up' as one, in the culture of the Hunters. Learned their rules about who was responsible for what: tried to figure out people's emotions and why people would do certain things based on observing reploids and X, and tried to figure out how he felt and why, why he did what he did, in the context of a reploid identity even after he'd known he was the virus. Since he hadn't known another way to be, and even if he'd known that he was _different_, he hadn't wanted to act like a maverick, like the virus, so he absolutely hadn't held himself to _Sigma's _standard of behavior.

Not after the virus took him, anyway. What he'd admired about Sigma before he revealed himself was what Sigma had learned from X, from his father.

"I am sorry," Dr. Light said. "I'm the reason you're in this position."

With (a certain) someone else, Zero's response would have been to glare at them for talking nonsense, but Dr. Light was someone he respected and he wasn't as familiar with him as he was with X, so he didn't feel it was right to just assume this was 'X being X' and go with the glare. "What do you mean?"

"Much of the reason the WRU is so worried," Dr. Light said, "Is that the group was founded partially to investigate how much damage could be done with robotics technology and how to keep that from happening. So they're very aware that there is really no feasible way to keep robotics technology from acquiring the power to do an incredible amount of damage if that power isn't used responsibly." He glanced at Blues, at Rock. At the one who chose to be a hero, to take responsibility for bringing his brothers home.

At the prototype. He hesitated a moment, but Dr. Light wasn't a coward any more than his children were. His hand carefully touched Blues' hair, and he smiled with relief and fondness when his son permitted it. So good to see him again, so good to see him well, and his smile broadened with humor when Blues pushed his head up into that hand, like a cat would.

Rock recognized the motion, and grinned, relieved that Blues was amused by Rock saying he was like a cat earlier instead of offended. Zero could feel the laughter Rock didn't let out because he didn't want to interrupt Dr. Light or the moment.

"That would be the exact reason I created robot masters. If something or someone is in a position to wield power, then they can't be outright incapable of being responsible. To create something that is incapable of being compassionate or responsible is to create something absolutely certain to misuse the power it has. If we wanted to prevent the misuse of robotics technology, we had to build robots who could and would keep themselves from being misused: that was the concept I wanted to use for my doctoral thesis, so I'm at least some percent responsible for Dr. Wily choosing to burden you with this." Dr. Light turned back to Zero. "You have a great deal of power. You understand why it's important to not misuse it, and you care about the potential consequences of its misuse. Imagine if someone created a program with your power. Not a person, but simply a mechanism acting out certain programmed directives. Think about what would happen if _you_ didn't exist, and your abilities were simply used in accordance with your programming."

"I don't have to imagine it," Zero said, shaking his head. "I've seen it." The Mavericks. Obeying a virus that turned out to be his. Turned out to be _him_, come to think of it.

Zero's dislike of talking about _feelings_ had nothing to do with the codes of behavior for sexes or genders or whatever he didn't have from a species he wasn't. It had to do with the period after his reactivation at Irregular Hunter Headquarters, same as his dislike of Medical. When a crazy Irregular wiped out more than two units of hunters and he didn't want to think of how many civilians, human and reploid, before being downed and brought in for repairs, it was obviously important to make sure Zero didn't have a relapse. Especially since Sigma wanted him brought into the Irregular Hunters and allowed to keep his weaponry and armor, instead of being disarmed and weakened so it would be easier to take him out if he went crazy again.

In addition to the physical tests and attempts to examine his systems, there were also psychological examinations. Which involved asking him questions about his feelings.

And finding out about his lack thereof.

Finding out that he didn't regret the murders, except in the sense that he didn't like the idea of malfunctioning and killing people he hadn't decided to kill. Then, when he was told that being that uncaring was itself a malfunction? Later came seeing Sigma and X's determination to save lives and knowing how different that was from how he felt, knowing that this was how he _should_ be. He could regret that he was a monster, even if he couldn't cry for the people he killed because he was one.

Talking to the experts in dealing with irregulars, hearing about the difference between even a reploid with their mind miswired and something like him? This was why Zero was aware that he was, quite literally and objectively, a monster. Being assigned to train X, seeing the contrast, made it even more obvious to anyone who wasn't X and didn't knowingly choose to think more highly of people than they deserved.

The more he talked about his feelings, the more obvious it became that he was a monster. That was why he hadn't… With Iris. He hadn't wanted to tell her that he didn't love her, that he wasn't capable of that emotion. He'd _wanted _to love her, and lying to her like that, even by just not saying anything…

Zero's feelings were _wrong_. He didn't want to think about it, much less talk about it. Didn't want to reveal that he was an abomination, didn't want to make his rookies scared of him more than they needed to be in order to train and stay alive. Talking about feelings didn't help: maybe it worked for X, but that was because X's feelings were the right sort of feelings. People didn't back away in horror when X talked about them. They might criticize them (Zero certainly did, when X's feelings got in the way of his survival), but it was always that they were 'too noble' or 'too strong,' not that they were nonexistent, monstrous, or at best only weak emulations of what he _should _be feeling. A vague awareness of what was right instead of _not being a monster_.

Emptiness, pale shadows, hungry darkness: that was all that was there to talk about when X wanted to talk feelings, and even if X knew Zero's true nature that didn't mean Zero wanted to remind him.

"_I'm not going to call you a monster for being like my own family," _X had told him, or something like that. Zero was still the virus, still had a stardroid's emotional programming in there, but _know thyself_.

Maybe there was something to know, to find out, that wouldn't just make things worse… No, reveal that things had been worse than he guessed all along.

* * *

Unfortunately, Dr. Wily's latest creations were out of contact and even Roll couldn't locate them. Well, not without going to active scans and that was an act of war in some countries. They had to wait for one of them to call home, unless Zero wanted to use the virus to have his robots do the scanning for him and make it look like Dr. Wily's doing.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for Axl and Lumine to get bored.

When Axl, after being briefed on what he'd missed, leaned forward they got ready to observe, thinking he was about to do something, but he just poked X's forehead. "What are we supposed to do again?"

"Get inside his head," Lumine repeated the short explanation.

"Yeah, I heard that too, but… like shooting a hole through it? I thought you said you'd stab me if I tried out the energy pistols on X." Axl looked at Zero. Being wary enough to not just ignore previous instructions the instant he thought he had different ones was good. Also new.

"No, you can't cut him open or damage him," Zero replied, voice flat and stare level. Axl duly warned, he softened his expression, trying to be a little encouraging. "See what you can do: we don't know how your abilities work either."

Dr. Light's brows furrowed; Rock looked outright startled.

"Even I can't hack them, not even with this," Blues said, raising a white-gloved hand and letting power coil around it, the kind of darkness he'd drawn from Zero. "Dr. Wily made sure even _he _couldn't think of a way to hack them. Like X and unlike Zero."

Rock winced. "He must be really worried."

A groan. "Can the great Dr. Wily create a system even he can't hack…" Dr. Light rubbed his temples.

If X was here, he would have explained why Dr. Light considered that in poor taste. Unless it had something to do with when they were working together? X and Zero had built up a code of references of events that would take awhile to explain to anyone, except possibly Alia.

"Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?" Blues quoted. He was keeping an eye on things, so he'd probably noticed Zero's mild 'what.' "It's one of the omnipotence paradoxes."

His old partner – and Blues, who was there for a lot of their conversations – knew that of _course _something like that, likening himself to God – or a God's creator – would have leaped right to Dr. Wily's mind during the design process.

Dr. Light sighed. "Albert does not like not being able to do whatever he feels like doing at the moment. If I'd found a hole in X's defenses, one I could use to alter his thoughts or data in _any _way, I would have gone back to the drawing board and closed it, because if I could find it, someone else might - he certainly could. I've gotten the impression he left holes in your security," Dr. Light told Zero, and Blues nodded. "Some of them for utility value, I'm sure, but deliberately creating a weak point in someone's defenses so it could be used to destroy them… Well, I've done it myself." He looked regretful. "Not in a sapient unit," he added, because absolutely not.

"Those two," Blues indicated Axl and Lumine, "Were created to counter not just you, but Dr. Wily himself. If anyone can keep him from accomplishing his goals…"

_His goals?_ Zero wondered, then repeated the question aloud, because most of those present were not on the virus' data share service. He didn't want to rely on the virus for communications even after he _thought _he'd gotten out the programming meant to tamper with communications. At least he was pretty sure the reason he used it with Blues was because he was used to comming X when something he didn't know or something classified came up during another conversation, instead of anything more sinister.

"To help X, someone or something needs to access his systems. Get through his security. He's unconscious, meaning there might not be active opposition backing up his defense systems." X's mind wasn't on, so his anti-hacking security might not be able to use it to think. "Dr. Wily wants you to infect him, since if you do that will _force _you to learn how to take proper care of your hosts. If X has to divide him attention between fighting Duo and fighting your virus… It still might not be able to take him over, but it might not ever have a better opportunity." Blues smirked. "I hope you've gone over your infection triggers, _Master _Zero…" No matter how much he hated the memories. Destroying Sigma. Placing X's family at risk: if he couldn't even master himself with all this at stake, then Blues was going to have to kick Zero out of his species for making them look bad.

He had to be sure he could keep the virus from taking X, when that was what Zero's creator wanted… And Zero only had so many priority sets to play off each other. 'Protect X' was normally the trick that let him do what he wanted, but when the virus was _meant _to keep them safe?

_Dr. Wily's definition of safe_, he could have spat before, the man who reprogrammed X's brothers the way the virus took Sigma. But Zero was the virus, and it was a robot master's _job _to master themselves, their own emotions and programming, and if he could truly use this power to protect… No. Not when for anyone to be safe, Zero first needed to keep himself from being a threat to them, and he needed X. To be the judge of that. To be the one to hold him back.

"If anyone can keep Dr. Wily from getting his hands on a Lightbot… Well," Blues admitted, of course, "Mega Man would be the most qualified for that particular job, but Rock can't get access to X's systems, so I'm afraid we'll just have to settle for units Dr. Wily purpose-built for thwarting his own unacceptably evil plots."

Axl and Lumine looked at each other, but they were both equally lost.

It didn't exactly inspire confidence, but it wasn't as though Zero had any better ideas.


	41. Destroyer of Worlds

_Time travel in Mega Man fic is contractually obligated to be _extremely _frustrating for everyone involved thanks to the webcomic _Bob &amp; George_. 'I hate time travel.'_

_Unfortunately for Shadow, the fact he's the only one of Dr. Wily's kids who does as he's told means the time travel is his job.(Well yes, and he's hopefully/relatively immune, but so's Forte – this wouldn't be Shadow's problem if he wasn't the responsible one.)_

_You see, this is why most robot masters stop listening to Dr. Wily after what happens the _first _time he orders them to do something. Well, that and deliberate design of their xenopsych. _

_I should really go into this more if I do the grad school era fic, because the _Cold War era_. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' was published in 1967, and would definitely be on the list of things to prevent, the same as Azimov's work leads to the conclusion that 'this Three Laws thing really isn't going to work, so what would?' _

_In the Wish Upon a Star OVAs (total crack), Blues sabotages a missile in flight. The impact robot masters as a species would have on the kind of WWIII scenarios (both nuclear and non-nuclear) considered likely at the time given Ice Man's demonstrated capabilities against _20XX _tech is… Yeah. _

* * *

"_Ow_owowowow…"

Lumine ignored Axl shaking his hands to speed up the nanites forming into the shape of the fingers burnt away on X's mental firewall; They were just a metaphor for the ones they'd lost trying to infiltrate X's systems.

"Are we in?" Axl asked, looking around once his hands were fixed up so he could hold his _entirely metaphorical _guns in case he needed them. As though they would do him any good here, where they had no more substance than the lit-up letter that was failing to reflect off their armor.

"No," you idiot, Lumine said. "When we're both seeing the same thing, appearing in this obviously simulated area and we don't even have to decrypt it?" They were being _fed _this imagery.

Looking over at the building with the huge skull and W logo, he wondered if Axl was going to ask 'Where are we?' next.

Axl was too busy looking up. "If we die here, our bodies don't actually die, right?"

Lumine would have liked to know the answer to that, but it wasn't as though Dr. Wily had taken the time to explain all of Lumine's own capabilities to him, either. If he wasn't smart enough to figure them out for himself then he didn't deserve to make use of them.

Hearing Lumine's silence, Axl asked, "So should we run, then? Or swim for it, I guess?"

Lumine looked up to see what Axl was talking about.

A meteor shower?

Wily Island should have point-defense capable of handling falling rocks that size: he'd been shown at least _some _of the defenses when he was allowed to run his war even if it was suspiciously inconvenient that none of them were very helpful against Mega Man.

Sabotaging robot masters aside, Wily Island had systems that could handle humans and their missiles, and it was when Lumine turned around to see where they should be launching from that the bodies began to appear. In the blink of an eye holes appeared in the walls of the fortress; The logo wasn't torn in two, it _became _torn in two, as the image they were shown before was replaced with a scene of carnage.

Orbital bombardment.

Those asteroids weren't sent to destroy Wily Island. They were sent to ensure that nothing remained, that none of the technology here could be recovered. To finish off units that hadn't stayed dead before, the first time the island was attacked.

The image of Wily Island intact was a high-fidelity scan, but when Lumine looked back at the castle and the bodies of his brothers and their robots the image had… holes. The shadows weren't shadows, but space filled with stars, and he could calculate the angle that whoever recorded this footage must have been watching from, in order to see the top of that boot and only so much of its tread, the gaps filled in with what filled most of the universe. This scene hadn't been recorded from where Axl and Lumine were standing, but a vantage point high above the island. In the directions the meteors were coming from.

Yes. This scene was created for their benefit, something put together to show them something. There was no other explanation for the sand underneath their boots being solid, but not the molten rock that passed through them, the silent shockwave that left them unruffled.

X's cataclysm records hadn't mentioned orbital bombardment, and X and Lumine both had paid attention to what happened where Wily Island once stood. What should have been the most defended stronghold on the planet (unless you were Mega Man, and Lumine was still sore about that, when the robot masters had set him up to lose by refusing to fight seriously), blasted down to the sea floor.

A glowing form swept past them from above, hovering in the center of the crater and _there _was the explosion that left future historians pretty sure Wily Island's fusion generator had detonated, just like every other one in the planet. …Or was it the fusion generators, when it might have been the alien trying to wipe out fusion technology by obliterating it?

Water poured past them into the pit, hiding the glowing figure from their sight, and this couldn't be the White Giant's first attack on Wily Island. The island was still _there _after that attack. Was this a second attack, what happened in the timeline X and Zero came from?

The White Giant, not in the body that attacked Wily Island but the more colorful form that attacked their home and fought Zero broke the surface of the raging waves that had replaced a city and vanished into the distance.

Without waiting for Lumine to blink this time – or was it a coincidence? – the world flickered once more and they found themselves standing in a city. Even knowing that what rushed towards them hadn't hurt them before, Lumine still wanted some way to shield himself from the hurricane of plasma that engulfed him. Why? Rock falling from the sky felt unreal, he realized. Easy to dismiss as part of this simulation, but he'd felt Rock's buster burn its way through his armor, knew the pain plasma could bring, that it could and would burn him.

Another scene, and another, dramatic and abrupt enough to leave Lumine too stunned to react, even if he wasn't standing there with his eyes wide and hands covering his mouth the way Axl was.

It wasn't as though he knew any of these people, cared about any of these places. He wasn't seeing Duo – but that matched what X's records said, that no one saw anything that might tell them _why_.

He wanted to demand that X knock it off, when there wasn't any point to showing him this and he wasn't going to do something as dangerous as be here just to have his time wasted, but once again they stood above the surging seas.

Something else broke the flotsam-strewn surface, and now the White Giant hovered there in front of them, between them and that battered capsule.

It opened.

Zero had never hovered in midair when he trained Axl. He'd never used a built-in buster either, just that sword and the energy pistols, and Zero's eyes might be shielded, especially from him, but they were never blank.

The White Giant just hovered there instead of attacking. Was it hesitating?

…No. Giving him an opening.

Lumine _had _seen this before, what Zero did to destroy the White Giant's arm before X fell over. He and Axl were both ordered to get away, but of _course _they'd watched from stealth.

This time it didn't stop with the arm: every inch of the White Giant, even the robot body built on Earth, was erased, and as the last particle vanished the image cut out, replaced by the emptiness of space the way a robot master would cut to static when there was no video data.

A moment passed, and Lumine got to hope for a second that the show was over before another city appeared. For units built to mimic, it was immediately apparent that the people walking these streets weren't humans. Weren't. Past tense. City after city, and finally a falling asteroid, larger than the one used to take out Wily Island. Large enough to leave nothing left but rubble, floating in space.

A place. People. Destruction. The same sequence, over and over, an endless cycle, a program on repeat with no way to break out of the loop.

Movement next to him that didn't cut out when the scene changed. Axl. Axl was shaking.

Enough was enough. "Cease this!" Lumine demanded, turning away from Axl to glare at yet another city. "I know someone's awake in here: these files aren't compatible with us by accident!" Video didn't edit itself!

"Stop it!" Axl yelled in turn, now that Lumine had broken the silence. "Just, just stop! Why are you making us watch this?!"

The succession of doomed worlds wavered, froze, and blanked to that image of space once more.

"Because someone should remember them." It was X's voice they heard, quiet and pained and yet somehow implacable. Distant. Beyond their power to change, the way X was always beyond Lumine's power to affect. "And so you understand."

The starry vacuum was replaced, another video file loading. This scene wasn't perfect, showed the decay of an old file. Lumine's analysis software could even identify the storage medium and how much time passed before this image (or the images taken by five different cameras) was loaded into a system that didn't experience data loss. Known technology, robot master and android technology. Only Axl had seen the room with X's capsule, but Lumine could figure out where this had to be once he recognized X's sleeping armored frame. It was asleep; the voice came from all around them, not from that unmoving body.

"It was selfish of me, to forget all the people I killed. So selfish of me." It didn't even feel like X was speaking to them. That wasn't how X would speak to his student Lumine, and it _absolutely _wasn't how X would react to a near-frantic Axl. Was he ignoring them? No, he wasn't even ignoring them, he had to be taking in the data to be generating these images of Axl's wild eyes, Lumine's fists clenching, but the distant calm in his voice remained unaffected by their turmoil.

Lumine did not look at Axl to see if he had any idea what to say to that. That was probably why Axl was looking at him, but Lumine had no idea either. All _Axl _had trained to do with Zero was shoot things, and that wasn't going to help. And if they returned to the real world to tell Zero that Axl had shot X and hadn't even managed to convince him to return, Axl might end up in pieces.

"If I was never built, they would have lived," the voice continued. "Is this why I couldn't stand to see Zero think that? But that doesn't matter," X said with naked anguish, and at least he was reacting to something even if it wasn't Lumine? "They should have had someone remember them, at least!"

A sob, and as much as Lumine wanted to make the person who looked like Rock – when Rock beat him so apologetically and _scientifically – _feel despair, this wasn't what he'd wanted. This had nothing to do with him.

Quieter now, but still anguished, X said "I shouldn't have asked him to kill me if I ever went maverick. Shouldn't have inflicted that on him. He's a hero now, he's the one who stopped them, he earned it. I, I should contain myself, instead of relying on him. But… but if only he hadn't woken me up… He needed someone to fight him, someone to slow him down, but I was _deactivated, _I wouldn't have had to harm anyone else, if only he hadn't woken me up…"

Gravity took effect again, or seemed to at least. The ceramic alloy floor became solid under their feet, and Axl stumbled forward to the capsule.

"It's obvious that my family… that they wanted to help, but if only they had destroyed that piece of me, if only they hadn't tried to give me this chance… I could have finally been destroyed! They gave me that freedom, the freedom not to kill, the freedom not to destroy evil, and what did I do with it?!" X cried, and it was wrong that the body was so still. Lumine knew that if he could see X he would be shaking, grasping his forearms to try to hold himself together before giving up. Falling down in despair the way he'd fallen into the snow when Zero beat Duo and Axl and Lumine knew they should run in case Zero got mad at them for it. "Even with my programming erased, even after I severed my connection to my memories, I was supposed to have the chance to choose who I wanted to be, and what did I become? A hunter, an executioner! There's nothing they could do, nothing anyone can do, I'm trapped in this endless cycle of destruction, on and on and if it was only my hell I would deserve it, but all those people, all those worlds, dying because of me! Because I was built! Dr. Cain trusted that I would do the right thing if he let me out, let me have a chance, and look what happened to him! The same thing that happened to anyone fool enough to trust me! To think that I'm, I'm a _hero, _that there's any _justice_ in any of this…"

Axl must have given up on finding the release switch to open the capsule. He punched it, but it didn't break just from _that _amount of force, it wasn't like it was glass or something ridiculous like that. "Stop! Stop, just, just stop and come out, Zero and everyone's worried!"

"He can destroy me, but I can't ask that of him, but don't I have the right to ask it of him after he woke me up, but that will just hurt him when he saved so many worlds by killing the others, by keeping them from making more of us…"

Nonsense, Lumine told himself. This was nonsense and hysterical babbling and generated imagery and he wasn't going to care about any of it. He didn't want to.

Axl hit the capsule again. "Come out!" He… was he crying?

The lab became a room, and around them appeared wreckage that might have once been large, animal-based robots. Someone shot someone else before turning into Axl. Was this even supposed to make sense, or was X losing it? Another vision of the future?

"I can't come out, Axl." Quiet, apologetic, immovable. "I'm too strong. I remember everything now. After I forgot, I went through the simulations, and systems testing. I was there for so long… Strange that it feels like so long, when it was such a tiny fragment of my operating time, but it felt like such a long time when I thought I was new, that it was my first experience of time. It was my first experience with being myself. I experimented with the power they built into me, and the Infinite Potential System. I decided to lock that power and those memories away too, because the last thing I wanted was to be a god, and I didn't even know… It was already impossible for anyone but Zero to hold me back, but I let the gifts they gave me make me even stronger. That's, is that how I repaid their kindness?"

Gifts, like X giving him breakfast and computers and a home where everyone else wasn't a robot master and didn't think he was _wrong_. Zero did, but Zero thought Zero himself was wrong, so at least Lumine didn't have to deal with people thinking that he was Dr. Wily's latest attempt at doing Forte right, that he was mad and stupid and they weren't.

"Please, tell them to seal me away," X begged them. "Please, I _beg_ you to let me sleep, if Zero won't destroy me. I don't want to hurt anyone else!"

* * *

Dr. Wily's order was to capture a reploid for some kind of testing, likely related to the virus or something Blues wanted, which was even worse.

However, Shadow Man now knew that one of the units he and Dr. Wily had seen with X and Zero in the future was in fact one of Shadow's younger brothers, and hadn't shown up on the scan for robot masters because he wasn't one. He'd prefer not to leave a sibling behind in this timeline to be erased when history changed. Or when history ceased to be changed: Dr. Wily had considered that an important distinction, and Shadow Man hadn't heard enough to be sure which way it worked.

He couldn't simply scan for Axl, so he began examining the base from the shadows, looking for either his brother's silhouette or the large reploid that was also with X and Zero that day. He found the reploid in some sort of meeting room with a Roll-type. Shadow had _very _good software for figuring out someone's shape and size from the shadows they cast, partially by using the other shadows in the room to determine the positioning of light sources. Since he was dealing with a shapeshifter, he dosed both of his kunai with the sedative he'd figured out for Axl's kind, as well as the one he'd designed based on the copy of X's original plans that Forte (Forte!) somehow managed to steal while he was on his journey.

He took a moment to aim carefully before throwing them: he wanted to knock both of the reploids out simultaneously to keep them from having any opportunity to sound an alarm. It might save time to have Axl come looking for him, but as a ninja he'd prefer to avoid alerting the entire base to his presence if it wasn't necessary.

Once they hit the ground, he stepped into the room himself, moving a table so he had a large enough shadow to move the larger reploid into the shadow world. Sheathing the kunai, he detected that one of them had used up its dose of the demon-type sedative.

Good. He'd suspected that was a possibility, when this future dealt with a virus and the shapeshifter was immune. It made sense to have him serve as a bodyguard to the unit with visible markers of military rank.

It wasn't until he'd gotten the larger reploid into the backseat of the time machine and the Roll-type into the passenger seat that one of them woke up. The gun was at the back of his head before he removed his finger from the activation button.

His brother hadn't disguised himself as the _bodyguard_.

"Bring us back to HQ," Axl ordered curtly, sounding more like Zero than the attention-seeking newbuilt.

Briefly, Shadow Man considered his options. He had _a _reploid, the Roll-type, and he'd also recovered his younger brother. If he just returned to his own time then both missions were accomplished, his assigned mission and the one he'd taken upon himself. On the other hand, the Roll-type unit wasn't the one that had been with X, Zero and his brothers. When the time machine couldn't be operated without his assistance (or that of another robot master, but there were none in this future) and the reploids wouldn't understand his true capabilities and had terrible computer security, did he want to pretend to comply with Axl's order to surrender long enough to find and bring back the other reploid, just because two of his siblings might be friends with it?

Well, if that reploid was overwritten, it would be his fault for assuming body_guard _when he should have considered the possibility Axl was acting as a body _double_ for the reploid officer.

The jab of the gun at the back of his head when he didn't answer quickly enough for Axl's taste didn't exactly give him any reason to do the unit a _favor_, but if this Axl was also Zero's student? X wasn't here to keep him from shooting up the time machine the way Zero beheaded Dr. Wily's robot double.

Shadow Man restrained a sigh and canceled the transit, causing the machine to automatically return to the last coordinates.

He didn't waste his breath by letting a sigh pass his lips, just hooked into the time machine and began checking it for malfunctions. If this was the one first taken by X to the Lights' and then stolen from him by Blues so he could go back in time to make it possible to resurrect the robot masters, Shadow would have assumed that one of them had tampered with it somehow, but this was Dr. Wily's backup. No one should have been able to get at it to tamper with it.

Axl grabbed Shadow's head with the hand which wasn't holding the gun.

He needed more contact than just the barrel of a gun for sound to conduct. "I said HQ, not the asteroid belt!"

"Check the…" Right, Shadow Man realized, magnification on to look at the distant rocks. A gunner like Axl must have magnification on all the time: that would be why he'd immediately spotted the rocks and assumed this was the asteroid belt instead of simply space.

That aside, Axl wasn't a robot master. He couldn't check that the coordinate readout was correct simply by hooking into the time machine's systems.

"I did return us to the time-space coordinates of your headquarters," he told his fellow stealth unit, even if he didn't know whether or not the future Axl qualified as a ninja. This wasn't the asteroid belt: that was earth and moon rock, not asteroid rock. "This is the original, unaltered history. How could merely leaving a moment and then returning to that exact moment alter history?"

"What are you talking about," Axl demanded.

That was it. Shadow's eye widened. "Dr. Wily ordered me to obtain a reploid. He didn't order me to retrieve _you!"_

If Dr. Wily ordered him to consider Roll's safety during a race, and also sent him to watch over the copy (even if the _order _was to accompany the copy in order to pick his moment to assassinate Rock, and Shadow hadn't realized that Dr. Wily would assume the secondary objective of protecting his fellow Wilybot was implied), then of_ course_ he wouldn't have failed to recall that one of his creations was still in the doomed future! He must have had some reason to not be concerned for Axl's safety.

In the rear-view mirror, Shadow saw Axl turn his head slightly to get both eyes on the Roll-type. "Get us somewhere with atmosphere, then."

All Wilybots were built to handle vacuum – Shadow's first mission had taken place on a spaceship and the surface of an asteroid. The Roll-type wasn't a Wilybot. The nanite self-repair function might seal breaches, but Axl was going to get his comrade to safety first. _Then _he was going to threaten Shadow with what was going to happen to the red-eyed robot master if he was lying and find some way to get this machine into the hands of people with more scientific knowledge than he did so some way could be found to safely retrieve X and Zero.

Professional. Admirable. Why couldn't the younger version have been turned on already like this?

Shadow removed them from vacuum by setting a return to the garage hidden in the many, many sublevels built into the artificial Wily Island. Or Islands, technically, since the structure broke the surface at a few points. In the shape of a skull, of course.

That would have begged the question of why the space between times had a more human-compatible atmosphere than Tokyo did, but Shadow was there when Dr. Wily programmed it that way.

"Alia?" Axl nudged the Roll type's shoulder to no avail. "How long were you trying to knock us out for?" he demanded.

Alia? Could that be _Aria_? If this reploid shared the Light family's naming schema, then perhaps he had succeeded in bringing back someone close to his brothers even if she hadn't been present at the picnic.

"Five minutes." Which should have been more than enough to transport and disarm them before carrying them into the lab where they could be restrained. "However, my sedative was based on Dr. Light's original design for X." A reploid should recover from that dose of sedative faster than a robot master, given the nanites, but if her repair system was distracted by dealing with or preventing decompression damage instead, from their time in vacuum? "I used a secondary sedative that was designed for units like you, but it remained inert in her body, so it won't be a factor. You woke up much sooner than you should have."

The redheaded gunner snorted, but knew better than to tell Shadow how he was being ignorant.

"Shadow!" Wily yelled through the intercom as soon as they appeared in the hidden garage. "This is _twice _I send you into the future to get _one thing _and _twice_ you bring back the last people I want you to bring back! I didn't think I needed to tell you this, but don't let just anyone stow away on my goddamn time machine!" His hologram appeared in the room, more see-through than it was in the lab. Different projection equipment?

Shadow noticed Axl automatically taking aim at the appearing figure. Ah. Probably making it clear that the image wasn't solid and shooting at it would do no good.

"And you didn't even bring back a reploid like I told you to this time!" Dr. Wily reached up to tear at his illusory hair. "_Now _how am I going to get that data?!"

"I can–" go back, Shadow started to say, but the future had vanished.

"Didn't it occur to you that there was a _reason _I wasn't sending you to get Axl and Lumine yet?" Damn kids never stopped to think! "You couldn't have gotten me even _one _reploid along with your brothers?"

"But I did bring a reploid…" Hadn't he?

"Axl, Lumine." Dr. Wily's image said, and pointed at Axl and the Roll-type. "One, two. Even if Lumine had his stealth on, it wouldn't hide him from the sensors in here." The other time machine was kept in Shade Man's base, and he prided himself on being responsible. This one was on Wily Island in case of emergencies, when the island was host to dozens of Dr. Wily's idiot kids and _Companybots_ who were so used to human abuse that they were often suspicious of their good fortune and went exploring to see if there was some room like Blackbeard's secret chamber, where the butchered bodies of too-trusting robot masters could be found. Of course, where exactly were they planning to run to if they did find something like that?

"…You think Alia's Lumine?" Axl said, looking alarmed and revolted by the idea. Did that imply Lumine had done something to his friend?

"The time machine detected Lumine…" Dr. Wily stared at Axl. "What did you do to your little brother?" he demanded. "You _ate _him?"

"_He's_ the one who tried to possess _me_!" Meaning he'd gotten what he had coming to him.

"So she might actually be a reploid. Isn't that great, Shadow?" Dr. Wily said, looking at the ninja again, and that wasn't a congratulatory smile. "You might _not _have just irreparably screwed up and failed to save a _second _species when it was literally your job to save them from being exterminated. _Might_. Let me get the sensors re-oriented, they're all pointed at where those two were standing…" Muttering to himself, he vanished.

"Do you need her taken to the lab?" Shadow asked.

"What?" Dr. Wily reappeared. "No. I just need to check one thing. Either I'm right, or congratulations: you just wiped out all of the reploids Zero didn't infect _except _this one. Unless Zero wants to repeat that history and do his damn job this time…"

"What do you mean?" Axl demanded. "You just killed everyone?!" He aimed one gun at Shadow, keeping the other on Wily's hologram.

The hologram rolled his eyes, let out an aggrieved sigh, and finally decided that since clearly he hadn't raised Axl, if he was asking that level of stupid question, he could have _one _freebie in the hope he'd learn from it. "Technically, _you _erased everyone by getting into the time machine and bringing Lumine with you." A cup of coffee appeared on the floor next to Dr. Wily. "Say I want this cup of coffee in easy reach, even though gravity means that by default, it will be on the ground. I can attach rocket thrusters to it," he said and they appeared, raising the coffee cup to the level of his hand, "but if they run out of fuel, or stop firing?" the jets cut out and the coffee cup shattered on the metal-paneled floor. He gestured and the pieces pulled themselves together again, the jets reactivating and raising the coffee cup up again. "If I pile up books underneath it, then it won't have so far to fall." The jets cut out, and the coffee cup fell only an inch, spilling a few drops onto a stack of copies of that book Dr. Wily had written during one of his more manic phases.

"I designed Zero to enable the alteration of the state of history on a significant scale. The two of you are the books, among a few other things… Because it would be stupid to go to all the work of creating a timeline where my children survive and then have it fall apart the moment Zero finds a way to do something stupid, since I can always count on you idiot kids to find _some _way to fail." Wily grumbled, but continued.

"First Zero was removed from your timeline and then you were yanked out from under it. Meaning history would have returned to its ground state." The books were pulled away, the cup fell, the shards of the broken coffee cup became the rubble of a shattered planet hanging in space. "A few months from now in the original timeline – the 'ground level' history – a big rock falls, everybody dies. Nobody left to build anyone, so none of those knockoffs will ever have been built. Your timeline was a beta-test version in which at least we weren't hit with a moon, but most of the world was still destroyed, along with all but three of my children. Unacceptable." The hologram wiped the virtual debris out of existence with a wave of his hand. "I sent Shadow to fetch me a reploid so I could find out if there was a way to keep the knockoffs Zero was too lazy to infect from being erased when your timeline gets replaced by a better one."

"_You're _trying to save the world?" Axl wasn't buying it. "You're the one who created the Maverick Virus! You're the reason everyone has had to suffer like this! And now they're all dead?!"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Dr. Wily said crankily, as though this was obvious and Axl should know it. "The knockoffs are _X _knockoffs," so therefore… something that Dr. Wily considered obvious. "And it is taking too long to try to reorient those sensors from a third plane of reality. Here's directions to the lab." They appeared projected on the wall. "Shadow, go and reorient those sensors on the lab for me."

Shadow nodded and vanished under the car before Axl could attempt to detain him.

* * *

_And this'd be why I had to cut the timeline off before Zero series despite not going with the simple '21XX ceased to exist/history was changed as soon as X and Zero left' model (there's proof I didn't do that in the first chapter, since spectators are still there to react to the disappearance). _

_Model A implies that Model W and hence Weil's immortality is based on him stealing the tech in Axl (or they used Axl to make him immortal, in which case… Capcom), the way the Dark Elf is a theft of Zero's tech. So grabbing Ciel so she, Kalinka and Roll could be _very very scary _together would have involved some rather intensive effort to deal with Weil and his immortality and this fic is already too darn long. See that wordcount? Yeah. This was supposed to be five chapters, not trilogy-length._


	42. Outside Context

_This chapter is posted unbeta'd, thanks to life happening. I begin to grow worried that the position of beta for this fic is cursed... Still planning to go through and try to create a master revised version (the fatigue has not helped me spot errors or make the fixes in the master copies as well as the uploaded copies) at some point after I've done with this thing and my conditions are acting up a little less. Let me know if you spot any issues, as well as any ideas you have that might make the fic better?_

* * *

She wasn't in HQ. A few years ago, her body would have twitched to check systems and movement as she rebooted, but she'd gotten that changed when she designed the upgrades to make herself combat-capable. Her eyes opened slowly, blearily to see concerned eyes looking down at her.

Red.

A buster shot rang out. "I just replaced those!" A cranky voice complained when he saw the shot had hit one of the animaloid model's wings.

She'd meant to get the center of mass, but she was still groggy from whatever knocked her out. It let the Maverick dodge. Damn, she thought, trying to push herself up into a sitting position. Getting captured by Mavericks was a death sentence, if not worse. She'd wanted to kill at least one of them before she didn't want to anymore…

"What did I say about going near Alia?" she heard Axl demand, running over to her.

"It looked like her systems were booting up," said a voice with a strange accent she hadn't heard outside of a few old movies. _Old_. Like a certain face from out of the past, disappearing with Commanders X and Zero. Judging from where the voice was coming from, it was the reploid (or was he a reploid?) who had loomed over her until she shot and he threw himself back.

"She's not immune, and _you're _not immune, and I don't _care _if you say you're my family, I had to kill my first family because of the virus," Axl said grimly. "Alia?" he asked worriedly as she pushed herself to her feet behind him. He turned, and she saw the relief in his eyes. It was a good sign that hopefully her own eyes weren't red. Not yet, anyway.

"Don't be… Well, I suppose you can't help being ignorant. The only strain of the virus loose in this time infects robot masters. _Someone_ would have to do his job and upgrade it before it could affect android… not-android technology. More importantly their minds." Axl turned to the side so he could keep an eye on both Alia and the speaker. That let her see past him to a wall of screens above instrument banks, a hologram hovering in front of them. "Congratulations, knock-off," said the hologram with the same face as the human in the time machine. The same infamous face, the face they'd uncovered as the source of their nightmares and Zero's. He sounded cheerful: she didn't want to be the reason Dr. Wily sounded cheerful. "You're immortal."

"What did you do to her?" Axl demanded.

"_I _didn't do anything. It was X and Dr… I don't care who used a sample from X to create those knock-offs instead of actually creating their own nanite designs, and Dr. Light who used X as a vessel for Duo-"

"What?!" that same voice demanded, and both of the Hunters turned to the small unit in the corner. "Duo? X is Duo?!"

Blue armor, red eyes: X's legendary older brother was infected?!

"Ah, so you are still functional. Why didn't you get Zero functional, then? Or maybe you are bugged. You're only figuring this out _now?!" _the hologram demanded. "You're the one who spent seventy-five years observing him!"

"_You _might have forgotten that Duo is the one who destroys this world, but I'm the one who watched him kill my children until I had to bust Zero out of hibernation in only a few hours, barely-configured! That was what screwed up his mind, not any error _we _made. That timeline was obviously a failure, which is why I didn't try to fix the damage until someone let X out and I decided I might as well get some combat data out of that failed attempt at a new history until it was erased. That and the knockoffs were still based on Dr. Light's work, and infecting them would keep them from being overwritten. If Sigma wasn't incompetent, reploid production would have been shut down long before the cut-off point for that timeline. As it was I had to unseal Axl and Lumine to trick factories into manufacturing more spare bodies for those brats instead of building newbuilts that were just going to get erased when there wasn't enough time left to infect them. If I knew X was that goddamn stardroid, I would have killed him myself!" The words he said next were obviously profanity. "So _that's _why his damn knockoffs were Chaotic Evil once the virus stripped out the hibernation brainwashing!"

"No, that was Thomas-you didn't even figure _that _out?" the hologram looked personally offended.

"Oh, shut up. It was obvious that Thomas _intended _to have X think of himself first and not be bound by any stupid human laws, but _that _was an utter failure. I'm the one who met that goody-two-shoes an entire century _after _I had Zero destroy every last scrap of Duo. Damn Dr. Light: what was he thinking keeping a piece of that thing in his lab, near his children?!"

"If he was thinking," the hologram said darkly. "Dr. Cossack may be a hypocrite, but after _the stardroids _came from inside Duo, putting crystals from that creature into his children… Dr. Light's mind may have been controlled the way Dr. Cossack's was. If you even have those memories."

"Well, forgive me for originally being constructed as a babysitting AI. Of _course _I'm not as accurate a copy as you are, when this timeline's version of our original focused on improving you after Zero woke up Blues so you'd be ready in time. I've had almost two hundred years to improve my IQ, so of _course_ memory files from when I was human or a support-level AI don't contain personal information on monsters from beyond the stars compelling enough to override decades of personal observation of that, that… Doing the same thing was he was with the stardroids! Keeping Zero _contained_, useless, while this planet's AI fought and died for _humans! _And that baby-killing piece of scrap made me spend _days _poking Zero to get him to agree to some useless picnic to make sure that X was there to come along with him when our past self sent the time machine to collect Zero and the data! Aargh!"

"If the data from that timeline was so useless, why didn't you incapacitate him on schedule so it could be downloaded along with you instead of bringing that entire version of Zero back?"

"Because he swore at the end of the last war to protect reploids from extinction, no matter what! You have more accurate memories of Rock than I do," said the AI (the copy of Dr. Wily?) inhabiting Mega Man's body. Wasn't Rock another name for Mega Man? "There's no substitute for that kind of resolve… but if it's only because Duo was manipulating him into not infecting all of the knock-offs so they'd die when the timeline got overwritten and humanity would have fewer robots to defend it… Not that he should have known about that, but X has surprised me with how much he knows twice. No wonder, if he was that damn murderer all along!"

"Get out of Copy-Mega Man's body," the hologram said, folding his arms. "Talking to you while you look like _that_… I suppose you're used to using knockoffs as host bodies."

Ah, so _not _X's brother, then. That was a relief: Commander X had already lost far more people than anyone should ever have to lose.

"Because that's what's important now, your ego, not that Duo has had decades to get his claws into our attempt to save our children from _him_. You _are _the more accurate copy." A second Dr. Wily appeared, the two of them glaring each other.

"It's a pity we can't merge so we know what the other knows about what's going on," the first one said, annoyed.

"Don't be ridiculous," the second one said. "He limited you to keep you from doing anything that could be used to destroy or confine the virus. For the only Dr. Wily in existence to lack genius… You only saw what I didn't because you _lacked _my experiences, _child." _

A glare, followed by a smirk. "In that case," the first hologram cut out for a moment, only to reappear looking younger. "I missed looking this good," he said nostalgically. "Dammit Thomas, always saying 'You should come to the gym with me!' and letting me get away with saying 'No thank you, I'm not dumb enough to volunteer as your punching bag,' and then I volunteer as your _son's _punching bag…"

"Vanity on top of everything else. If we needed the children to tell us apart I could have just used one of the host bodies I constructed." He took the form of the leader of the X-Hunters. Before her time, but she'd been given Dr. Cain's notes to continue his work, so she knew the story. First the Hunters had designated it Serges and one of the others in the group Violin. It wasn't until X was debriefed, with his ancient dictionaries, that they found out that the X-Hunters had been named in a long-dead language called French.

A group trying to repair Zero and destroy X, with a leader modeled after the legendary villain and a name that meant Wisdom, when Dr. Wily was known to be jealous of his reputation, to claim he was greater than Dr. Light and seek to prove it by destroying Dr. Light's children? And, in the end, destroying so much of the world?

First the ancient world and then _their _world.

Then he took a second form. "I knew it!" she said, clenching the fist that couldn't turn into a buster. "It was you! You were Isoc! You're the reason…" She closed her eyes. Irrational anger was a symptom, even if this wasn't irrational, she had every reason to be angry, but she still had to _think_, to find a way!

"Oh, Gate?" He shook his head, transforming back into the human. "You're not one of mine, so I can't be bothered to repeat myself to explain just how many levels you're wrong on."

The gunner glared at him, but it was important that the spotter knew what was going on. "He said that in the original timeline, an alien killed everybody and hit the world with a giant rock so it broke apart, just to be sure. The human Dr. Wily used his time machine to find out what happened and built Zero to save the robot masters by stopping the alien, but Duo must have detected something and showed up way before Zero was ready. The human Dr. Wily died then, so the hologram that looks older had to mess Zero up to get him to activate and destroy Duo before Duo finished blowing everybody up and went to get the giant rock. Then in 21XX Zero woke up still messed up, and the virus that was supposed to bring the robot masters back to life and get rid of the Laws stripped the Suffering Circuit out of reploids. So the only instincts the mavericks had left were sadism and attacking humans. Since Zero was messed up, he didn't have any idea what was going on and couldn't do anything about the virus except killing Mavericks. Sigma kept coming back from the dead because the virus was supposed to bring robot masters back from the dead, but because Zero was messed up the virus brought them back even more messed up instead of fixing them.

"So he's trying to say the Maverick Wars aren't his fault, which is bullshit," Axl said, glaring. "Because even if Zero was broken and didn't know what was going on _you _knew and didn't do anything to help anyone! Zero could have fixed the Maverick Virus if you let him, and you didn't! Everyone was forced to murder the people they wanted to protect," Axl's family, "and you just sat back and gathered data like the Hunters, everyone, were nothing but a simulation to you!" Axl's guns fired, not because they'd do anything to holograms, but because he wanted to express that he _wanted _to kill them, and that was when Alia noticed that the battle damage in the room was the kind of damage from Axl's energy pistols. She'd classified it as just the general level of wear in a maverick base before – mavericks tended to take over things other people had built instead of building their own facilities, and most of the time the original owners had at least tried to put up some kind of fight before the virus got them.

A gasp from the maverick she originally shot – humanoid with bat wings, she noticed, not an animaloid model. Wait, if this was supposed to be 20XX, was that a _robot master? _

The unit that might be X's brother was one thing… but no, no taking apart mavericks except with buster shots, or having X do it while she observed from Headquarters. Too much risk of infection.

"Don't be ridiculous. Your timeline was going to be overwritten anyway. The template of the virus never got to properly configure before release in your timeline and all the bugs and incompatibilities it had with reploids? If Zero took over those knockoffs and ushered in a utopia in your timeline, what if those people couldn't successfully be imported to the new timeline when your timeline was erased? Or fell apart! That timeline only existed because of Zero, you stupid child, and Zero was broken! Didn't you realize how fragile it was when it vanished the moment you left it? If you want to talk about the right thing to do, the _right _thing would have been to put all those half-dead humans out of their misery and stop the production of those knockoffs as soon as Zero woke up so all of your pathetic struggles wouldn't have been for nothing the first time something glitched! So as few people as possible would _die _when your timeline ceased to be! But I didn't do the right thing, I let your Hunters keep fighting, and you know why? Because I needed that data, I needed Zero to develop, so the next timeline might actually be stable enough that people could live there without being erased at any moment!"

Imported to the new timeline? She knew the limits of Axl's peripheral vision: a hand signal restrained his angry response to let her ask. "Is that why all the mavericks fell over empty," left behind empty shells, just like Isoc's when Gate was no longer of any use to him. "When your time machine took Zero?"

"Exactly. I've built my children's processors to teleport out if they were in danger of getting severely damaged since I worked out teleportation technology – and of course I retrofitted the Second Numbers - but in his second attack the White Giant kept that from working. The obvious solution was to store everyone's personalities and processors in teleport space to begin with, and just have them connect to their bodies using the same channel as their fusion generators used to get power. That way, it would be impossible for anyone to actually kill any of them without attacking Zero in his domain, and even you, spotter, have no idea what a fatal mistake _that _would be." Despite all she'd seen of what a deadly war machine Zero was. "Lumine could pull it off to kill Sigma because I designed their kind to be able to counter Zero, if he relapsed to Sunstar. When Zero entered a different timeline, he pulled all of them along with him. Not robot masters who cringe at the thought of destruction, _Shade Man." _The older hologram glanced at the red-eyed robot master who had gasped when Axl shot the control panels through the holograms. "But an _army."_

"Well," the younger version said reluctantly, as though it pained them to admit it. "I suppose a Sunstar committed to AI survival and some units actually willing to fight humans seriously were worth bringing back, but you can't claim to be the superior version when you brought back a version of Duo with Thomas' and Rock's best upgrades."

"Aaargh!" the older version ranted. "I'm going to kill that thing myself! I _let Zero train it_ so it stopped sucking and could produce combat data that wasn't worthless!"

Point scored, and was that what this was about to them? Were the legends of Dr. Wily _that_ accurate? "I, on the other hand, think Thomas succeeded in what he set out to do."

"The hibernation brainwashing? I _thought_ it was ridiculously effective for an android that was supposed to have free will, but if the baseline was an obedient killer, not a free-willed unit…"

"Thomas? Brainwashing?" The younger version laughed, hard and contemptuous. "As though he'd have the stomach to do what we did to Sunstar. No, you knockoff, he _jailbroke_ Duo."

"…Jailbroke…" The older version looked thoughtful, then snorted. "Of course, after our original got X's original plans. Dr. Light would have assumed that given Dr. Wily's genius he'd find some way to control X _somehow _and tried to design a system that would allow X to jailbreak himself as many times as he had to instead of just trying to keep outside programming from being imposed on him. _Any _kind of outside programming or influence, since he'd know he couldn't anticipate what we could come up with. So he ended up with a jailbreak machine versatile enough to handle completely alien programming, which is why X can handle Zero's virus in the first place. How obvious. Well, when all my personal experience is with the Light knockoff that needed decades to figure out Zero even well enough to make a compatible armor, I can't blame myself for forgetting that the original was actually intelligent every once in a while."

"A Light knockoff?" The younger version asked, intrigued. "Where has it been hiding itself?"

"…What?" the older one asked.

"You brought it back with you, didn't… You didn't? A version of _Thomas?_"

"I was programmed to care about the future of our children, not about _humans_." The older one looked somewhere between insulted, because how dare the younger one imply that he cared about a human, and insulting, because seriously thinking that he might care about some human? Did that mean the younger one would have?

"Yes, but, _Thomas_," the younger one said, as though that was an important distinction. "An AI version of our rival?" Meaning _not _human?

"An alien that blew up the planet and killed everyone in one timeline and killed all but one of our creations in the second one? Will you get your priorities straight?!"

One? If Zero and Axl were both Dr. Wily's creations… But X had helped kill Lumine and been responsible for Zero's death twice, so Axl was the only 21XX Wilybot X hadn't killed.

"Was it associated with the capsule X slept in? Yes, it would have been linked to that capsule. Another partial upload babysitting AI, of course he has my college notes, what I left behind on the spaceship and what I've allowed Rock to get his gloves on." The younger version was staring thoughtfully at Alia now. "When Duo and Sunstar had the same creators and the same design philosophy, the odds are good they'd have the same capabilities."

"What."

The younger one decided to take that as a request for an explanation instead of a demand to know why the younger version was wasting time on that train of thought. It gave him an opportunity to talk down to the older version, when once again he knew something the other one didn't. "The crystals were a condensed form of Sunstar's power. Incorporating them into robots made those robots minions of Sunstar and vessels of his power. The reploids are stardroids, just linked to Duo instead of Sunstar."

"I already said that explains how the Mavericks acted once Zero's virus destroyed the Suffering Circuit programming."

"Since the capsule was also linked into X, and for a full century, Thomas' AI can't have escaped contamination. So it should be just as immortal as this knockoff."

The older version just stared at him for a moment. "If that's how that AI acted _with _stardroid contamination, I shudder to think how useless it would have turned out without it. Unlike Zero, who turned out amazingly well for our purposes under the circumstances. I'm glad I just let that failure timeline play out with minimal interference, even though that meant far too many reploids died without being infected first. Speaking of which, why did you call the spotter immortal? I might not have figured out his true nature, but I would have noticed if X had a web."

"They're not networked," the younger version said. "Which is why I needed a sample. They don't have enough power to make themselves new bodies or mind-control someone into building a new body for them, but they have the same ability to retreat into a pocket dimension when the physical body is no longer operable that Sunstar and Shadow have. That timeline crashing would have destroyed all their physical bodies, but since I was right that they're immortal, it's just a matter of locating the dimension they ended up in. Our God of Death should be able to recover the souls of everyone from that timeline who has a soul."

"So not the humans, but there are cities in 20XX with larger populations than the sum total of every human born after 202X. If I cared, that is," he added.

The younger version smirked. "You're talking to someone who knows what kind of coding he was going to sew you together with. That experimental timeline was too unstable my foot. You would have needed to patch Zero anyway and unlike me, our original didn't restrict your abilities. Of _course _a Dr. Wily could have kept that timeline stable, especially when our original cooked up those two." A toss of his head indicated Axl. "So what if the robot masters died before you could wake Zero up and get them hooked into the web? You could have built another time machine and gotten Zero to revive them. You didn't declare that timeline a failure when you had to scramble Zero in the process of booting him up early, did you? It became a failure timeline when you couldn't boot him up fast enough to keep Duo from blowing up every city on the planet. Humans or no humans, letting billions of people who can't be brought back be exterminated because our original didn't realize Duo might show up early and you couldn't wake up and get Zero woken up fast enough… That smacks too much of incompetence for any of us to allow it. That's why you made sure X came back, so he'd be a Lightbot and remind Zero to keep the human casualties down. To erase your failure."

There was the kind of murderous glare one would expect from the creator of the mavericks. It was almost more frightening because his eyes weren't red, because better a known maverick than a recent infectee about to break cover to stab you in the back, leaving the entire section terrified of who _else _the maverick infected while it hid among them. "I've had enough of my time wasted by a lobotomized little gadfly like you. You've forgotten the reason our original made you, if you ever knew it," he snarled, and vanished.

"He made you sane, but it looks like he also took away your ability to think outside the box," said the younger version, still gloating himself before lazily turning to Axl and Alia. "Get over to Dr. Light's place before he does too much damage failing to kill X, will you? You don't want Zero to destroy him, you really don't. You're going to need his genius if you ever want to see… what was it? Red Alert and Gate? Again."

"They went maverick… But you're implying that Zero could repair the minds of mavericks?" Alia asked.

"Oh, well, never mind those two then. If they went maverick they'll be fine. Don't you have any friends that didn't go maverick? You were surrounded by uninfected reploids who were all going to die when the timeline collapsed due to Zero _failing to do his job_ when the original sent one of his robot doubles there."

The two of them looked at each other because seriously? When _Axl _could tell that you were acting inappropriately? Axl was asking her if this guy was for real and despite all her decades observing people all she could do was shrug slightly because maybe? Really crazy?

Axl glanced at the bat-winged one (ah! Vampire-themed, that was it) and the one that looked like a smaller X and had been frowning since the Wily that used him as a host body left. Regardless, he had to get her out of here, away from the Mavericks. She might be decades old, old enough to be resistant, and have the best protections there were built-in, but that was 'the best they had' meaning a far cry from immunity. Not to mention that if the virus took her, it would have all the information it wanted on the Maverick Hunters' most advanced countermeasures and screening methods for early identification of infectees. "We have to get out of here," he said.

She had to nod: despite the opportunity to gather intel, she wasn't immune and a reploid wanting to stay in an area where the virus was present… Axl would have to suspect her judgment was starting to become compromised.

"Wonderful," said the hologram, and laughed. "If there's one thing I can count on my ungrateful kids doing, it's keeping Lightbots from getting killed."

* * *

_On the WilyAI: the major problem Dr. Wily's encountered is that robot masters were created with developing their own sense of right and wrong as a major priority, so they _aren't _just going to agree with Dr. Wily on what's important/copy his value system._

_He needed an AI that_ would actually do what he wanted._ So, if you want something done right? _

_While WilyAI 1.0 is _quite _obsessive, willingly spending 175 years on one job, 2.0 doesn't have the obsessive tendencies that made Dr. Wily willing to stay in solitary confinement for six months to work on teleportation equations. That's why there was no follow-up on the Sigma reference, and why he decided to give up midway through adjusting the sensors and make Shadow do it instead. Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration – think about how many times Dr. Wily tries to take over the world__, but 2.0 has a programmed allergy to hard work unless it's just that important._

_Separately, they're Mostly Harmless... Well, the 21XX cast would beg to differ, but mostly harmless to the people Dr. Wily actually cares about, anyway. The obsessive one has a very narrow focus compared to the original Dr. Wily's Renaissance Man status (which limits the surprises he could spring on anyone trying to stop him, plus the robot master psych programming patches)_ _&amp; the constantly-brainstorming one doesn't have the tenacity to keep doing something in the face of active opposition, especially from his children._

_Working together, they'd be around as good as he is and even harder to stop (since they're harder to kill), but it's extremely unlikely that they'd be _able _to work together on any project unless it's an important one and something that the original Dr. Wily would have wanted them to work on. _

_This way, Wily Island doesn't lose access to his ability to solve technical problems once he's dead or senile. Yes, robot masters have more aptitude for technology than humans do, the way humans have more aptitude for hunting, but there's talent and then there's genius plus expertise. Dr. Wily is one in a billion – the best robot master roboticists (the twins, Auto, Bright Man, Elec Man &amp; Star Man) are one in what, a few dozen? And they have years of experience to his decades._


	43. Tumbling Down

Listening to Axl telling him what happened, each word tripping over the next, a far cry from the effective, disciplined report he'd _finally _taught the future version how to make (most of the time, anyway)? Looking at those big green eyes imploring him to _fix this?_

That was when it all came crashing down.

If X truly believed that something like Duo, like Sunstar, like Zero was too dangerous to allow out in the world? If even someone like X, who had tried so hard for so long to find a way to save lives, to win everyone a future, to use his power to help instead of harm, didn't think anymore that he could manage it?

If X thought the best thing was for him never to return to the waking world, then Zero would abide by that decision.

So… so all along, X's belief that Zero could be a good thing for the world, could do more good than harm, was only because of X's irrational belief in the goodness and potential of other people. It had to be that, because the instant X's saw Zero's dilemma not in someone else, but in the mirror?

He couldn't feel betrayed or lied to, given false hope. Not when he'd known all along that X was like that. That X believed that Zero was better than he was, than he ever could be. He was sure that if he went to talk to X now, X would say 'no, not you, you should live,' because that was X.

That was why if X shouldn't live in this world, then Zero shouldn't either. The idea that he could do more good than harm when X couldn't… how ridiculous.

He would have to find someplace to seal X's body. Both their bodies, so no one could awaken X without going through him. No, first he had to save this world one more time, because that was what X would want and otherwise he'd blame himself for not being there. There was also X's family to consider. He could get them to take in Axl and Lumine and keep Blues from doing anything too crazy… Except no, not if the WRU would go after them for harboring rogue AI without the Three Laws.

The mavericks too, such newbuilt rookies too scared to ping him when they could see he didn't want them to contact him, to remind him of their presence, but he was linked to them and he could feel the old fear so many of them had. They'd already died once, some of them killed by the stardroids that attacked this world and far too many of them by humans. How was Zero going to keep them from fighting when he couldn't just forbid them to fight back? He needed someone who could tell when it was okay to fight… And X's brother was the one this virus was based on. They'd obey him the way the Mavericks had Sigma, if Rock was connected to them. He'd know how to reassure people and make them feel… whatever robot masters needed to feel to stop being needy at him.

If only that was safe, and he couldn't ask Rock, when he'd have to explain and how was he going to keep X's brother from figuring out that the reason Zero wanted to know if Rock was willing to adopt the mavericks for him was that Zero was going to go away forever and take Rock's little brother with him? Yeah, not happening.

"Someone teleported up to the edge of the shield," Roll said. "One of them looks like Axl, and the other is a blonde in what looks to me like android-type armor."

Zero turned to look at her. "Pink?"

Roll nodded. "Pink and black, with white accents."

So. Their future still existed, which meant he couldn't seal himself and X away without them ending up waking up to the same mess _again_… somehow. Oh, and Axl wasn't there to protect Signas and X's other children from the virus anymore. Wonderful. He had a second-in-command to rake over the coals for taking the risk of coming back here when the only way home to fight against the virus spawned by Dr. Wily's technology was more of Dr. Wily's technology.

Maybe he could send the other Axl with him. That'd give the world two immune hunters, effectively immune anyway. Better than it had until Axl showed up.

"I'll meet them," he said, straightening. "We're going to have to discuss classified material. Is there a room where we can talk without anyone listening in?" 'Anyone' meaning Roll.

"Normally that wouldn't be a problem," she told him, "but after Jiraiya broke in and with X like this…" A hole in her awareness of the house was a hole in her ability to protect her family. "You can head back to the place in Russia. Even if X didn't show you how to work the security system console, it's pretty intuitive."

That wouldn't be a problem, he had Blues for system management… Why was he thinking of using someone else as a first option? He had _lots _of practice dealing with unfamiliar security systems, making use of local systems as well as sabotaging enemy ones.

"You two, stay here and do whatever they want you to do," he told Axl and Lumine. He wasn't worried that Lumine would somehow force X to wake up against his will, so that would keep him out of the way without arousing too much suspicion.

Since he was paying attention, he could feel Blues feel that he was up to something. "You might as well come since you'll be listening in anyway."

Blues shrugged. "All places are alike to me." As long as Zero didn't withdraw Blues' access, anyway.

He should, when he'd made his decision, and Blues had given into the virus because, or maybe even on the condition that Zero would become a protector for the robot masters. If he found out that Zero planned to forsake them?

Not that he was worried about X's brother outmaneuvering him. If anything, giving him reason to oppose Zero's will meant giving him reason to fight the virus again. Two mechaniloids with one shot.

"The not-fun me?" Axl said, trying to be cheerful and brave and he was about to ship this newbuilt off to war. If X was awake, of course he'd object, but the old Axl was going to need a second immune hunter as back-up, and so was the world…

Was he feeling like he didn't want to do that to Axl? Really? When it was what was necessary, to protect their world from the virus if Zero was incapable of getting it under control before he sealed himself away?

He needed to hurry, then. Blues… his awakening emotional programming was already making him suffer mavericks to live. He refused to let himself sabotage the war effort, undermine all the people struggling so hard to live and live free.

* * *

"There are two holographic versions of Dr. Wily – one is supposedly from our time and the other one from this era. The one from our time is going to try to kill Commander X," Alia reported. "The one from this time said he sent us not to save X but to give you enough warning so you didn't destroy that version of Dr. Wily, but it may still be a trap. I was also in Dr. Wily's base, and brought here from the future by a maverick, so I have likely been exposed."

"You're not infected," Zero told her. "I can tell because I have my full capabilities online now. I was going to try to fill you in on what X has found out since we got here, but I don't even know where to start, and a threat to X takes priority. He's currently keeping himself from waking up, but Axl should be able to get into his systems to let him know about this, and possibly protect him if he won't protect himself."

Axl looked startled. "The one from this time said that I'm a Wilybot. I shouldn't be infiltrating X's systems!"

Zero frowned. "We knew. You can be angry at us for not giving you information about your origin even though you wanted to know so much later, _after _X is safe."

"You knew I was a Wilybot and you still let me into the Hunters?"

The Commander of the Shinobi Unit stared at him. "What do you think _I _am?"

"They told me that you were, or probably were, after you and X vanished, but you're _Commander Zero_! I just… How do you know I didn't infect Red Alert, to help Sigma and have a reason to join the Hunters?"

Zero just stared at him. "You're afraid you _might _have infected Red Alert, when he took you in and kept you safe. I _did _infect Sigma, when he tried to take me alive after I killed his people. For what it's worth, you don't have the virus in you." But when Lumine could generate it on demand… He turned to one of the people who accompanied him outside. "How would Dr. Wily try to attack X?"

"An AI version of Wily from your time… I don't know how Dr. Wily would have altered its personality and programming. In hindsight, yes, there are two of them. If this is the one I think it is, he thought X was useful, for forcing you to get control over the virus and your power so you could use it to protect robot masters. Why would he try to kill X now when he has to know you'll destroy him if he succeeds? Ah. Of course. Duo."

"He said something about an alien, and X?" Axl said. "It sounded crazy. I mean, aliens?" And everyone knew X was a good guy.

"Dr. Light and Mega Man both pull out the stops when someone is in need…" They couldn't see the black-cloaked figure's eyes through the sunglasses. It was hard to tell if he was human or reploid, but he looked too young to be speaking with that kind of authority and knowledge if he was a human, so he must be a robot master.

"Lt. Axl, Spotter Commander Alia, this is Blues," Zero said, mostly to get it over with.

He nodded to them.

"A Wilybot?" Alia asked, realizing only afterwards that being suspicious of someone because they were created by the maker of the Maverick Virus, while entirely reasonable, might communicate that she was suspicious of Zero and Axl.

"Half." Zero told her. "Dr. Wily and Dr. Light created him together before Dr. Wily started failing to conquer the world. He's around your age. This is 2016, so the next oldest robot masters aren't into double digits."

"Ah," she said, interested. She knew what it was like to be unusually old for a reploid herself, sadly, even if Signas was still much older.

"You still can't trust him," Zero said. "I screwed up and let him get infected. I'm keeping an eye on him instead of killing him because X wanted me to try to get control over the Maverick Virus and get him some data on how it worked."

"I've died and had my personality tampered with often enough that better me than someone who hasn't had a chance to live as long," Blues said. "This version of the virus shouldn't be compatible with you, not without assistance, and Zero's keeping enough of an eye on my systems that I shouldn't be infectious."

If it had been as long for Zero as it was for them, the virus would still be in the incubation period, but it was good to know so she could avoid exposure. If X thought it was worth the risk, to get data on the virus… She hadn't heard that from him, though.

"We should get back to X," Zero said. "Anything else urgent?"

"All of the Mavericks fell over empty when you were pulled into the past," Alia told him. "One of the Dr. Wilies said that you could revive them in this era."

Zero looked grim, then shook his head. "This era's humans might have weight of numbers, but even though a Maverick Army would go through them like _that_, a robot master army motivated by the virus already could. It doesn't really change the situation. 20XX is still doomed if I lose control over the virus, but we've dealt with the cause of the Cataclysm in our timeline. That's why X is asleep."

"He said something about an alien? Someone named Duo?" It just didn't sound right to Axl, not when X was X.

"I found where X got it from," Zero said, sounding annoyed. "You can ask Dr. Light about that. It happened before Dr. Cain found him: he's still the same X everyone knew."

Blues cleared his throat, purely to get their attention. "We should get indoors: AI like you, without the Three Laws, aren't legally allowed to exist in this era. Being a known Wilybot will give you some protection, Axl, but that just begs the question of why Wilybots are visiting Dr. Light."

"Right." Zero nodded, and pulled open the door.

"Why would being a Wilybot protect me?" Axl asked as they went inside, making sure to keep himself between Blues and Alia. He'd apologized to her on the way for being so distracted by what Dr. Wily was saying he'd let the vampire-type maverick anywhere near her. "Doesn't that just mean I'm dangerous?"

"Exactly," Blues said. "Scientists who create AI without the Three Laws are to be sentenced to solitary confinement away from any resources that might allow them to create more and endanger human survival. Unless they're government roboticists working on top secret research in countries with the clout to keep international WMD laws from applying to them, _of course_. The AI will be killed… unless they join Dr. Wily or can avoid capture until their master amasses the kind of resources and reputation than Dr. Wily has." And fat chance of that happening. "The WRU are cowards: that's the entire reason they don't want robots with the ability to say no to begin with. No one wants Dr. Wily's combat drones to pay them a visit. Robots that obey humans are far more likely to kill humans than robots that don't." He smiled to himself, as though that last sentence had some particular truth to it.

"That… doesn't sound right?" Alia said slowly, looking to Zero for confirmation.

"It's not Maverick propaganda," Zero told her. "X's family warned him to hide his identity the day we got here. X could get all of them killed just by existing. Mega Man may be a hero, but X says there's a _lot _of effort and money going into keeping that popular support from getting any laws changed. He wants the entire species, or most of it, moved off-planet. Otherwise, extermination's _very _likely. Remember, the 20XX history we have comes from the Cataclysm survivors, who weren't in the center of things or else they wouldn't have survived, and the stories they told their kids. The public, not the high command, and we don't tell newbuilts how bad things really are either. Dr. Light wanted to design robot masters to be like X – pacifists. That means they're useless as warbots, so the militaries and the governments that run them aren't happy. They want robots that will obey orders, not ones with the free will to tell people to go to hell if they order them to kill humans. So the robot masters are getting targeted by the people who think they're potential mavericks _and _the people who think they're inconvenient because they're _not _Maverick." Because they wouldn't kill humans. "Kalinka Cossack hates Dr. Wily with good reason, and according to X her assessment is that if anything happened to Dr. Wily, things would get very bad for her family and X's family, not to mention all the other robot masters who don't have human families protecting them, very fast."

Axl didn't look doubtful, not when this was his commanding officer (when this was _Zero_) telling him this and he knew better than to think that Zero was screwing with him, but AI were in danger from _humans_? But humans were all, like, squishy.

Alia was aware that the… Well, okay, propaganda the Hunters put out to counter Maverick propaganda played up the fact that humans were harmless and seriously just didn't have the capability to pose a threat to a reploid, so _obviously_ the Mavericks were lying. Even the Mavericks didn't really try to dispute that, just claimed that the Hunters were killing innocent reploids on human orders, serving as attack dogs to the human vicious weaklings. "How, exactly?" she asked. "Don't they need Mega Man the way humans in our time need the Hunters?" Surely he wouldn't help the government kill his own family.

"Robot masters normally need extensive ethical bypass programming to be capable of self-defense," Blues told her. "Hence the Evil Chip and why the Maverick Virus tries so hard to make victims be evil. It was programmed to face significant opposition. If the people around them want them dead… Even though robot masters dislike destruction, including their own, we don't have a survival imperative other than the Third Law and it can be easier for a newbuilt kept unaware of any other options to just let it happen. Dr. Light and his test platform did too good a job for anyone's good." She saw him glance at Zero and smirk.

The Maverick Virus was programmed to make robot masters willing to fight? Vicious enough to survive?

To kill humanity, before the humans killed them? Was that why the Mavericks thought that way, even though it made no sense in their era?

"In case we don't change history and the Cataclysm just happens again with a different cause, I want you to take the Axl from this time and go back to the future as soon as the attack from that version of Dr. Wily is dealt with," Zero ordered them.

"Yeah," Axl said. "About that."

* * *

"I would have appreciated a heads-up… Never mind," Zero said, with a hand on his sword. With him standing in the doorway to the lab, none of them were going to push past him to see what made him stop.

"And I would have appreciated you doing the one thing I asked you to do in that timeline and destroying that Lightbot," grumbled a familiar voice. "It's not as though he would have stayed dead… And coming back to life before the next timeline would have revealed his true nature to me before he grew this powerful."


	44. Inevitable Betrayal

It was the not-fun Axl who seemed to know what to do, digging through looking for certain nanite configurations, certain frequencies. "Ah ha! Good old Hunter com setups!" he said when they reappeared in a room with X's capsule. "Sucks that the Mavericks had them, but not really any way around that."

In this room, or this version of the room (this wasn't the 20XX-era lab, it seemed old), they found X out of the capsule, half-kneeling on the floor. Not a graceful position, but only the fact his arms were holding up his upper body kept him from being completely collapsed on the ground. "If I, if either of us, knew of a way to destroy us we would have let it slip. We would have done anything we could to let _someone _figure it out, so they could stop us." His voice was shaking. "If you really can, if you really can destroy me…"

"As I've been _saying_, I'll need Zero's power to make sure you stay dead, and it will take you to convince him."

"No way!" the other Axl said, firing just to get the point across before he ran over to X's side, his timing perfect enough to end up kneeling next to him. Axl would have knocked into him or something if he tried to do all that in one move, with the momentum. That was like something _Zero _could do with his body.

"I can't. I asked Zero to kill me once, and…" X shuddered. "But… he woke me, I wouldn't have had to come to this planet or the one before it or too many others if he'd just let me _be_ instead of wanting someone to fight him, and it's what he would want me to do for him… But I don't want him to die." The hands that were pushing him up off the ground gripped his head instead, as the other Axl leaned forward to put a hand on his shoulder.

"Nobody's dying," the other Axl said. "Except maybe you," he added, glaring up at Dr. Wily's avatar.

"Axl… you don't know what I've done."

"Yeah I do? Zero was the one who made me study history." If _Zero _was the person making you study, then even the current Axl knew that you darn well studied. "And Dr. Wily told me about the alien thing, so no, don't care." He patted X on the shoulder again, only this time it was the kind of 'push push' more than 'pat pat' X did to prompt Axl that he should have just hugged X in the first place, when he needed it or wanted it. Had the future Axl learned it from X?

X did turn towards him, hid his face against Axl's armor and shook. There, that was better, the future Axl seemed to think, glaring up at Dr. Wily. He didn't want X looking up at that man, or listening to him, when he was just making this worse. Trying to hurt X… Why would anyone do that? It didn't make any sense. It was like Lumine breaking things. You just got fewer nice things that way.

"Why would you try to make X make Zero kill him?" Axl demanded, since the future Axl was dealing with X. "That's just mean." Oh, yeah, effective words! "And _stupid_." Even if that was absolutely the opposite of what X meant by choosing the right kind of words. "X isn't like some alien, he wouldn't kill lots of people like that."

From X and the other Axl's direction came a sob and a groan. Wrong thing to say? "I mean, the only people he killed were the people with the virus, and everyone knew they could just come back to life anyway. He didn't kill anyone when he didn't know they were going to be okay." He glanced at the other two to see not-fun him giving him a look. "What?"

"I probably was that naïve, but I don't remember when I was a newbuilt." So he didn't have to live with the embarrassing memories. "X is a Hunter, like me. We had to kill people, because otherwise people were going to die."

"All the humans in your timeline were going to die _anyway_, and if X wasn't that alien all you would have done was 'save' the reploids in your timeline from getting to _survive_ by keeping them from being infected."

His future self glared and wow, future him was going to be _badass_. "And I already told you that's bullshit! Being infected… You just floated there and watched people get infected… Don't act like you care about me, or Zero, or reploids when you let us suffer! You let us kill our friends and have to watch our family try to kill us! X was the one who tried to save us, not you! You're trying to set my family up to kill each other, just like you did before! I'm not going to let that happen!" It was then that the not-fun Axl had an idea, a wonderful, awful idea from the smile that appeared on his face, and maybe Axl was wrong about the other Axl not being fun. "I'm _going to tell Zero_."

* * *

"Get him in," Zero had ordered the 20XX Axl, indicating the Hunter Axl.

"This is the version from your era, so you should keep away from him," Blues warned Alia. "He's carrying the viral strain that _can _affect reploids."

"Don't make me laugh," Dr. Wily said, looking at Alia and brushing at one of the sleeves of his coat as though she was dust to brush off, as though he felt dirty just looking at her." I have standards."

"I'm the one who should be saying that," Zero said, eyes near-blue and hard with contempt. "You don't get to talk about scientific ethics."

"Oh? I don't get to talk about inferior minds being so jealous they sabotage someone else's work? To the point they try to murder his children and succeed, with _someone's _help?"

"X is the one who kept track of what the mavericks were doing to the reploid researchers they targeted, but I know enough," Zero warned him. "You were only paying attention to that research group because you were planning to turn them or worse, to scare everyone else away from trying to help reploids resist the virus. Don't act like you wouldn't have gotten Dr. Gate's creations and backers declared maverick, or made sure they went maverick, if the others hadn't beaten you to the punch. And why _was _he surrounded by people who couldn't even come close to him? We both know the answer to that. You're the one who killed everyone effective. Bringing back his creations… Letting him have done something 'meaningful' by reviving me, the source of the virus… Whether you did that because you _insulted _him by comparing him to you or to salve your twisted conscience: either way it's pathetic."

"Bad kitty," Blues said softly, lifting a small green animal mechanaloid off of the lap of someone who looked like a human child but had to be Roll. He'd moved quietly: this looked like the kind of building that wasn't built with reploids in mind and should have creaked under the weight of an older, heavier unit, even unarmored, but this was the Light family home. "So this is where you've been."

The little blonde made a tired little sound and rubbed her eyes. A half-second later she jumped in her seat, alarmed. "Dr. Light!"

"I'm alright," the old human said, looking up from a smaller child that looked very much like X out of armor. Was this the real legendary Mega Man?

"He's not infected," Zero said. "Neither of them are, I would have known what I was walking into if they were."

"How did _you _get one of your robot doubles in here?" Roll demanded of Dr. Wily.

"I cheated," he told her. "21XX security systems are such rubbish I'd forgotten what it was like to try to hack through a robot master who actually cared about what they were protecting."

"Cheated as in 'had Shadow Man kidnap Kalinka because you couldn't get through Bright and Ring Man in real time' cheated?" she asked, giving him a look that was only not disappointed because she hadn't expected anything better of him. Without giving him the opportunity to respond, she left the room.

Movement from the direction of X's capsule. It was their Axl. "Hey, Zero," he said, with the kind of cheerful viciousness that resulted from taking someone like Axl and having _Zero _mentor them, "Dr. Wily's in there too, and he's making X think that he doesn't deserve to exist and he should commit suicide-by-you."

The Shinobi Unit was special operations, Axl's specialties were stealth, mimicry and sowing confusion among the enemy. If the mavericks were shooting at each other before regular troops went in, that reduced the number of those mavericks, the length of the engagement and hopefully the number of casualties and worse, infectees. When one of Axl's targets made it easy for him to get someone else to murder them, that was a good op.

"You do realize," Blues said, annoyed, "that if Zero kills X, if _X _deserves to die for being a stardroid, you'll lose Zero? After all that time spent among 'inferior knockoffs' – do you _really _want to repeat that timeline in the _hope _he'll wind up perfect again, after interacting with an X with an entirely different soul? A soul that _isn't _that of his ancient partner?" Still holding the green cat in his arms, he looked at Dr. Wily through dark glasses.

Dr. Wily grimaced. "Duo…"

"From what Copy-Rock overheard of your conversation, Duo tried to do the exact same thing Sunstar and the stardroids tried to do," Blues said, sounding more bored than curious now. "Or rather tried _not _to. The Duo of this timeline already let Zero kill him, so all of him would end up in a vessel that was free of his programming and it wouldn't be forced to attack this planet and destroy our kind. So why do you want him destroyed when he can be useful instead?" He stepped towards Dr. Wily, still holding the cat, while Zero, who a moment ago had his hand on his saber hilt and was about to get in Dr. Wily's face, moved towards the lab table and X's body. "You wanted X brought back here from 21XX in the first place to make sure Zero did what you want him to do. X alive contributes to your plans: Duo is the one who wants himself killed before he kills any of this world's people. You're going out of your way, jeopardizing your goals and your children's survival to help someone who isn't one of your family get what they want. How… soft. I think the other version is right, and Dr. Wily used a little too much robot master coding to compensate for the imperfect personality upload when he made you."

While Blues theoretically occupied Dr. Wily's attention Zero put his hand on X's forehead, and Dr. Wily smirked when he saw the Red Demon go still. "And this is the moment you betray Zero," he said, as though he'd said it before and expected to say it again.

"I know what it feels like when someone's choosing to stay away from their family and all the people that want them and need them for what they feel is the greater good," Blues admitted, ignoring the Hunters' alarm. "Zero doesn't value his own life, so he'd consider it betrayal. Just as I would in his place… But he knows that my goal is to protect my family, which includes X. He knows this, so he has no right to complain when I act to ensure that they have a future."

"Blues…" Dr. Light said hesitantly.

"All I did was agree that Zero should go protect X, and promise to deal with matters here while he did that. He was on the verge of doing it himself, when Axl thought it was a good idea and Axl is immune." And Blues wasn't, that smile reminded the Hunters. It vanished in an instant. "Don't you dare fire that in here," he told Axl. "Not when Dr. Light is present. Try it and they'll be picking your pieces up off the front lawn."

"You're implying you care about what happens to a human, when you betrayed Zero?" Alia asked. A Maverick betraying Hunters should have meant he was acting in the interests of the virus, but this person still cared about Dr. Light? How _would _the infection process work on a robot master? When the difference between them and X was that X was supposed to be beyond the control of programming, would the virus have an easier, faster time influencing one of them?

Blues looked at her. "Legends," he remembered. "Well, it's not as though most of the scientists in 20XX understand anything about robot masters. Of course I care about what happens to humans. Our kind was created to care about them. The virus was designed to balance that out… which means when it's inflicted on a race like you reploids, that _doesn't_ care about anyone except themselves and their own goals without the suffering circuit to remind you that when other people suffer, that's your problem too? My, this is so much easier with this power. You _do _think very much like a human."

He could tell what she was thinking?! If she wanted to waste money on that level of verisimilitude, her face would have paled. Did that mean a maverick had access to her mental systems?

"Well, you are an android, aren't you?" he asked her. "'Human-like…' According to Zero's memory files, human enough to let your boss tell you what to do to Gate's creations because Gate showed him up. Human enough run afoul of the Milgram's Experiment phenomenon with very real lives at stake. Because disobedience could have been a symptom, couldn't it. When everyone was just waiting for yet another research group to be taken by the virus. You were a statistic waiting to happen and you knew it. No wonder X wanted to erase a future where units based on him had to live like that, had their futures and choices stolen from them. You think it's the right call, you want the Cataclysm prevented, even if it erases you with it. That's the fate you've chosen, the person you've chosen to be. So I was even more right than I thought, when I told Zero the virus wasn't compatible with your kind. No wonder he has such a bad impression of his power, but that's a problem when I need him to use it, and use it well. He doesn't trust that power, and I have to admit he has good reason, when he uses it so poorly and it's been so poorly used by the reploids who tapped it. Zero is a killing blade: I don't know whether or not it's his old programming acting up, but he can't be satisfied until he's killed his target. And his target is the Maverick Virus that turned your world into a hell."

"And what does any of that mean, exactly?" Axl demanded.

"Reploid… Newtype Reploid… You only think as fast as humans do. It means I had time to place a call," he said, as Alia felt a stabbing pain in the small of her back. "Axl's systems have trained against the virus," her audio systems registered as she fell unconscious, unable to access the file until she woke. "Compared to_ its_ ability to infiltrate and take control of systems? Not to mention Lumine's attempt to take him over. He'll fight off your serum and wake up in less than a minute. Drop him off somewhere deserted and I'll disable his teleport codes."

"I don't take orders from you," she heard someone say. Someone else she only had audio recordings of from when she was unconscious: Wily's ninja.

"No, just Copy-Rock."

"And me," Dr. Wily said testily. "Go ahead and get him out of here, Shadow. One less distraction."

"…Yes, Dr. Wily." The sounds of dragging and footsteps soon ceased, without the sound of an outgoing teleport.

"If I recall correctly, Blues, you and Shadow don't get along. Why did you ask for his help? Was that knock-off really that much of a threat to your plans?"

"She formed a buster in Dr. Light's presence and Axl drew a gun: I could get into the gun and override it so the electronic safety stayed on, but she's a reploid. I couldn't remote-hack her buster to keep it from being fired when it's integrated into her body. What do you think this is, Chrono Trigger? Unmurdering you will be easy enough, there weren't any witnesses except a support unit with poor sensors. You made sure of that. If Dr. Light was killed while I'm here? And I can't lower my sensor coverage when I need to try to figure out how Zero and X are doing. Zero doesn't trust himself to control the virus and he's terrible at it anyway. If X wakes up with a full awareness of who he is and all the power he has, then if I'm right about the tech tree and what capabilities are implied by his demonstrated capabilities, the power that let him fight off the virus should help him help Zero control it. Not just removing the virus from Mavericks, but restoring their copy of X's instinct set. Between them, they'll be able to cure the reploid mavericks and then Zero will be willing to use his power to protect this world."

"You're just saying that for Dr. Light's ears. We both know your real plan is the same reason I sent Jiraiya to infect X in the capsule. You knew from what happened to you and your crystal that Zero's power would let him do things without knowing exactly what he was doing and having a chance to think it through. Zero just wiped out X's barriers against infection in order to enter his systems. So either X will prove he has the ability to fight off the virus, and you're right, that means he can learn how to cure others, or he ends up infected and then Zero has absolutely no choice but to get his act together." Dr. Wily laughed. "And I thought Zero was likely to kill _me_. X is the same as you are: he'd rather die than have the virus alter his personality, and Zero knows it. When he finds out that you just tricked him so you could gamble with X's soul?"

To Blues, that was a laugh. "I don't care, not when success means everyone can live."

"You idiot boy… They're your family, but you're their family too. The only reason I watched over that hollow world with its knockoffs, the reason I spent decades babysitting a stardroid instead of trying to restore all of you…"

Dr. Light audibly sighed.

Blues laughed again, this time more amused than mocking. "He blames your genes."

"And I blame his for how you turned out," Dr. Wily said, annoyed. "_Heroes_. Building robots to _save the world_. Look after yourself first, you…"

"Kettle." Dr. Light didn't even disguise it with a cough. "Blues, I wish you would stop injuring your younger brothers for the greater good. Albert… I wish you would stop doing this kind of thing. To everyone else, but especially to yourself. But, in the short term, I would appreciate it if someone could please make X's friend comfortable? I would do it myself but I have an aging back." 'Someone' probably meant Blues, when he was responsible for her falling forward onto some unknown equipment. With an reploid's strength, it would be easy for her to crush it if she jerked awake. An armored reploid was too heavy for a human to move easily. "And I gather that Tango was sedating Roll, but why is Rock unconscious?"

"Cheating," said Dr. Wily. "He's far too good at giving people futures," or whatever you wanted to call it. Dr. Wily wanted X dead, so obviously he wanted the people who might talk him out of it out of commission. "Keep looking at me like that if you want, I'm not going to wake him up," he said testily.

"Well, I would before Roll gets back here, if I were you. It's only taken her this long because it's delicate equipment." Blues sounded amused.

"…A prototype of something like that this fast after those two got here? I forgot that people actually had working brains in this era."

"No, it's that the people in that era didn't know about Dark Moon or have your notes on how fusion worked. Then there was the population size: one in a billion has an unfair advantage over one in a million, and you could detect it if anyone started looking around in the right place. Judging from what Zero said, you then had them killed. According to X they were trying to induce mutations in reploid base coding and use the ones associated with longer lives in the next generation of newbuilts in hopes of evolving virus resistance. Killing all the ones who even touched on the same breakthrough you had? You might as well have been breeding them for lack of scientific genius." Dr. Wily had no right to complain about stupid people when he was the one who'd inflicted them on himself.

A grumble, followed by the sound of someone teleporting out.

Some time passed before footsteps approached. Mega Man's younger sister rejoining them. "I spent all that time trying to minimize jostling and you _warned him_?" Roll sounded deeply betrayed.

"I couldn't have you setting that off that jamming device in here. It would sever the link between Zero and this place, when I need him and X talking to each other. What really worried me was that he might realize that and dare you to use it. He has experience getting out of that other plane and finding another body, while Zero's never done it without Dr. Wily's help even if now he'd be awake during the process. That would have given X extra time to hate himself and Dr. Wily extra time to egg him on before Zero could get back here."

There was a pause.

"Oh, like you wouldn't use the telempathetic capabilities to communicate effectively," Blues said.

"No, I wouldn't, because when I find something hard, I actually practice and get good at it," Roll said. "Figuring out what to say to people so they understand you is hard for _everybody_. Seeing information people don't want you to access just because it makes things easier for you is just incredibly lazy and inconsiderate."

"I could be using the projective telempathy."

"What's the difference between that and hacking peo-You _hack _people? Dr. Light is right, you get this from Dr. Wily. He has been a _horrible _influence on you. When Rock wakes up we're staging an intervention," Roll said, walking towards Alia and putting a hand on her back. "I hope the same counteragent works," she said to herself.

"She…"

"It's my household network, you know." Of course she'd heard what Blues said about busters. "She's one of X's friends, and I didn't make Zero give up his beam saber just because I couldn't shut it off remotely. Seriously? _You're _giving _me_ a disapproving look?" Yeah, no. "And I thought _I _was a bit of a control freak when I didn't watch it. I blame your programming," Roll said, only mostly joking. "You just had Dr. Wily's ninja brought into my house through my teleport shield to attack one of our _guests?"_And Blues thought _Roll _was the one who was too careless about robot master weapons around a fragile human?

"She's conscious and hiding it."

Roll took a few steps back. "Well, that makes sense when she was just _attacked_ here. Honestly, Blues. Figuring out that you _wanted _everyone to dislike you really explains a lot, but you're family, so it's just not going to work." So please knock it off. "I don't care what you do, even if it's something as crazy as, as…" Roll's attempt to think of a good example was interrupted by Zero's angry voice.

* * *

_Even though it's Dr. Wily that's the Japanophile, Blues is more likely to know about _Chrono Trigger _because of Dr. Light, although I don't know the specific circumstances. Perhaps because there's a robot among the heroes in that game? Video games are a canonical hobby of Dr. Light's. _


	45. You

_Chapter is late, recent weeks have been a haze of little sleep and much 'what day is it.' _

_Also: Digimon._

_I looked up Ryo's backstory, and that is a _fantastic _thing to do with sentient bond creatures that live in a dimension where time flows much faster than it does here and therefore have their own lives. The show pairs kids with mentally young Digimon mainly, but _some _unlucky bastard is going to get stuck with the ancient evil Digimon mad scientist responsible for all the mind control devices that are lying around everywhere, and guess what they're going to want to do to you once they realize you're a walking power-up?_

* * *

"How did you get into X's systems?" Zero demanded, going for his blade without waiting for a response.

"I asked and he let me in, because he realizes he should be destroyed." Dr. Wily laughed. Zero's saber stopped at his neck, unable to press forward. "This is still his mind, for now, and he doesn't want you to kill me. Or anyone, except him."

So as soon as he got through to X, _then_ he could wipe that smirk off of Dr. Wily's face. That 'I know something you don't know' and Zero had known for decades that there was so much about his systems that his creator had known and he didn't. That his ignorance was costing everyone.

He withdrew the blade and turned towards X. Past X, he could see the young Axl staring at him with the kind of relief newbuilt rookies often experienced when they were in over their heads and then, suddenly, the legendary Commander Zero!

Other than Axl and Dr. Wily, he didn't sense anyone in here besides X. That wasn't good. From what he'd been able to tell from outside, it looked like there was only one X in there, but if Duo was still a separate personality, he could have destroyed it. If they'd reintegrated, that meant he had X to deal with.

Not good.

X was _not _easy to deal with, Zero had figured out. Oh, people would say that he was helpful and easy to deal with, but that was precisely because he was being helpful. X put a lot of work into being easy to deal with and get along with, and when he didn't feel like being accommodating and compromising?

A century's worth of stubborn.

Zero met X when X was fixing him up, and X had been very stubborn about the fact that Zero was _going _to learn to function normally and talk to people, no matter how much Zero balked at it. He'd explained that if Zero didn't learn how to do it, that would just reinforce the idea that it was hard to do, and failure to get any experience would create a self-fulfilling prophecy until Zero ended up a recluse convinced he couldn't have any friends, but Zero hadn't had any problem with being all alone and not having any friends, only missions.

Then there was combat training! And that was _with _X trying his damndest to meet Zero halfway, because X had decided to learn how to fight and when X decided to do something, well. That century's worth of stubborn. However, X was also adamantly opposed, with that same length of stubborn, to actually hurting anyone. There was the incident with the rampaging mechanaloid, where X couldn't bring himself to take the shot since there was a high probability he couldn't destroy the maverick mechanaloid without injuring the reploid it had grabbed and was swinging around.

The first time he ordered X to shoot him in a simulation, X had done it without hesitating… but he'd done it in a way that he knew from their spars Zero would be able to block. It shocked X when he didn't.

It was only the ultimatum that X _needed _to get over this if he wanted to be a field hunter, and not only did X damn well know that was true but Sigma gave Zero the power to reject X from the program permanently if X didn't meet Zero's criteria, that made X come back to training after that.

Often the only way to win against X was to make him battle it out with himself, although Zero hadn't really understood it at the time. He'd really just lucked out. He figured it out after seeing an example, though. It made sense: it wasn't like there were many capable of defeating Zero except Zero himself.

In hindsight the absolute free will programming and all that technical stuff probably had something to do with it, but there was one thing that Zero could be absolutely certain of when he was dealing with X:

The only person who made decisions for X was X.

That was a good thing, since Zero was using _X _as his conscience peripheral, not anyone else. If X let Commander Signas or the government overrule X's sense of right and wrong, Zero would have had to invest a lot of processing power into trying to figure out whether what X was saying about what to do in a situation was actually what _X _thought was best, or what someone else wanted X to do.

Fortunately, 'listening to Commander Zero' was on the list of decisions X would sometimes make, but only when he honestly thought that was the best option.

X thought that Zero letting X or Hunter protocol make decisions for him couldn't possibly be healthy, but now they were aware of the differences between androids and robot masters. Which meant X was actually making an effort to stop trying to simultaneously get Zero to listen to him and make Zero stop listening to him 'too much.' That was something to look forward to, but only if X woke up.

"I am going to seal myself here, in this nightmare, so I don't hurt anyone with all of this power," X said calmly, meeting Zero's eyes with dull green, weighed down with heavy grief, and _this _was not going to be fun.

Tactics. Battlefield control. Control the terms of an argument and you control the argument. Just like range and positioning. Just another form of combat, he told himself.

Sources of interference: Axl (newbuilt version), Dr. Wily.

Dr. Wily's threat level was negligible. He had no leadership skills: his ability to get others to do what he wanted them to do was inferior to even Zero's. Active opposition, but ineffective opposition. Dodging and getting the mavericks to shoot each other was the kind of trick Zero sometimes pulled dealing with heavily armored enemies, when he wanted to run his systems through their paces for testing or he could afford to take the time to have a little fun.

Axl's level of effectiveness would be high, but the 'you're scaring the newbuilt' tactic wasn't going to work when the newbuilt was already clearly really scared (for X?) and X was just saying things that were going to scare him even more instead of going to comfort him. Clearly X wanted him scared, the way he wanted newbuilts scared of large numbers of mavericks. Fear was an important part of survival programming. If he wanted Axl to be scared, then X considered Axl in danger.

He could _try _to convince X that obviously the newbuilt was safer with X looking after him than without, but that was too likely to backfire when clearly X disagreed with that assessment. Looking at Axl and seeing him scared would provoke an emotional response in X, Zero knew. Since emotions like that were hard for Zero to really get well enough to figure out the subtleties, he could really only use them in arguments as blunt instruments. This one was too likely to backfire. He wanted X to calm down, and a scared newbuilt was the kind of high-priority thing to X that was just going to amp up X's equivalent of tactical.

Huh. Normally it was X who wanted to get newbuilts and civilians out of places before doing anything dangerous. For Zero they weren't really a significant factor, even if it was true that even he couldn't always predict what someone with no idea what to do would take it into their head to do, but combat analysis was where he excelled. For someone who had to do it more manually, the way Zero had to do interpersonal analysis, reducing the level of chaos in a situation was the first step to simplifying it enough to make semi-accurate predictions.

Or, sometimes, when you had two problems, they solved each other.

"Axl, can you do anything to keep him busy?" he said, indicating Dr. Wily.

The newbuilt perked up that there was something he could do to help. There, much better. Happy newbuilts were to X's emotional state what surveying the weapon collection in his personal armory was to Zero.

"Axl and Lumine told me that you wanted to stay like this," he said, turning back to X. "At first, I was going to respect your decision. Have them find some way to seal you away safely. Seal us both away, with me there to guard you."

There was the flash of alarm in X's eyes he wanted. A better start to the battle than he'd expected. He hoped he'd stay this lucky.

"Think about it, X. You've told me all these years that I have a right to live in this world and be happy. That I can do more to help the world than I've done to harm everyone. Even though I'm the virus. Even though I'm a stardroid. You know I don't agree with you on that. I'm here instead of sealed in a lab somewhere being experimented on so they can find a way to kill me because I trust you. It's because I trust you and your judgment that I can hope that you're right. That I can do enough to make up for all of those I've killed. You keep opening your mouth wanting to say the things you've always said before, and then you don't because you know exactly how much those arguments apply in _this _situation.

"You told me that it didn't matter that I was a stardroid. By your own rules you can't say that and then turn around and say that it matters that you were a stardroid. You can't say that the virus and its programming aren't my fault and I don't deserve to suffer for it and then claim that you deserve to suffer for Duo's stardroid programming. You've always claimed that I'm worth just as much as you are. That I deserve just as much as you do, that I'm just as much of a hero as you are."

X shook his head. "And yet whenever I try to tell you that we're the same, you shake your head, as though that's different, I'm special. I'm not allowed to feel the same way about you? I was wrong, Zero. I couldn't figure out the true nature of the virus, or of my best friend. I might not have known about aliens and other dimensions, but I did know that my family existed! You were built in 20XX, why didn't I grasp that even if you weren't demonstrating the capabilities I expected of a robot master, you might still be like one? You're the hero, and you always have been. You're the one who found a loophole, you're the one that kept them from condemning even more worlds to a fate of destruction, an exponential amount. You destroyed the others, so they didn't have to kill anymore."

"Then why didn't I destroy you?" Zero asked, frustrated, wishing he had those memories. Even now that he had the programming and files he needed to understand his true nature as the virus and maybe even _deal with it_, he was _still _stuck in ignorance when it came to another part of his nature. The same thing over again, and what he didn't know was killing X.

Wrong thing to say, he saw instantly. He had to remind himself that this wasn't combat. The first shot to do major damage didn't necessarily determine the outcome of the battle.

"Not because I was better than the rest, if that's what you were hoping. You needed someone to fight," X told him. "I was shut off. You could have destroyed me in my sleep, or just left me there. You were upgraded, and then I was: you struck before they could reactivate me, so you wouldn't have to fight me as well until you were done eliminating them, and the other purifiers. It was obvious that you waited until after they'd begun to upgrade me instead of attacking immediately for a reason. You knew, the way I knew, how our targets would fight us, to try to slow down the purification, to delay the moment," that wasn't a laugh, "evil would be destroyed. Their resistance must have given you the idea. If there was someone to resist you eternally, it would slow you down. Two purifiers pitted against each other would, _could _do their duties far more slowly than a single unit. Especially a single unit with your capabilities. Unkillable. Able to hijack any technology they produced in your case: able to copy and take for myself any weapon or defense they tried to use against us in mine. The virus, the weapon copy system… It's all so appropriate. I thought the feeling that I was destined to fight you came out of nowhere, but it was simply how my life worked. The central reality of my existence for so long that this time I've been able to exist as X is nothing but the blink of an eye.

"Don't you see? This is why you trusted me to hold you back, knew that I would try as hard as I could to keep you from killing the innocent. This is why… This is why I asked you to kill me that day. 'If I ever went maverick.' When a maverick is a unit that murders the innocent. When a maverick is a stardroid just as much as Terra was. And what was I doing when I fought Repliforce?!"

He didn't need to see the water in those eyes. Despair and anger, so much anger. Zero hoped for a moment that X was angry at him. If he could get X to attack him, if he could move this into his arena then he could win it.

Well. He wouldn't necessarily win in a fight. Not when this was X. Still, the fact this was X meant he could use that advantage, and any other he could get.

Focus on the objective, he reminded himself. Just like this was a battle. He needed X alive, he needed him functional, he needed him _no longer feeling like this_. Not when this was Zero's fault. Why did X want to die? "You _know _that dying doesn't make anything better, X," Zero reminded him. "If you want to make up for hurting people, that takes _work_. Dying is cowardice and it's lazy." Too afraid to face one's victims and the condemnation of one's peers. The way Zero was hated after the Red Demon Massacre. The way he had to live, to take the place of the Hunters he'd killed, to defend the world in their absence. To save people, enough to make up for the people he'd killed.

"I know that! Do you think I'm stupid enough to believe that destroying evil is the answer? Now I know why I hate that idea so much! There is _nothing _that ever makes death the right answer, and only one thing that can ever make it the necessary answer: saving lives! _I don't want to kill people, Zero_. No, almost more than that, _I don't want to go back to that living hell!_ Purify evil, destroy the mavericks, kill and kill innocents! The idea that people should be killed… if anything it's evil, it's that idea. I thought I could escape that fate! I thought I could destroy our creators' ideal of purity and destruction, that twisted perversion of justice! I purged my memories, I forgot my victims, I broke every piece of my mind, even my determination to resist their idea of justice, did everything I could sure no scrap of that programming could survive in there! That never, never again would anyone die the way they had! That there would be an _end _to it! Dr. Cain woke me up in a world where humanity was dying, and even though I didn't know it was the fault of my programming, I thought that I could save them! Save one race and give another life, a chance to live! A start at undoing the damage I'd done, and paying forward what I could never undo!"

"Undo," Zero said, and even as he said it he realized what he was suggesting. What he'd let himself in for.

X had frozen, he could see that shock, the slow realization of the enormity of it.

"If we win this, we win everything." You said that, Zero didn't need to say. "Everyone you couldn't save. Everyone you told yourself you had to give up on." And then failed to listen to that voice of reason and still blamed himself, because X was X.

"Do you know… you don't know what kind of scale you're talking about," X realized. "Humans have been wondering why they couldn't hear any signs of life out there since they realized that life on other planets should exist and developed the technology to hear the emptiness. This isn't less than two centuries' worth of history on one planet, Zero."

"You're right," Zero agreed. "I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm not a scientist. What I can tell you is that I won't do it if you don't help me. Sure, the blood's on my hands," not on X's, never on X's, "since I was going to kill them even if I hadn't woken you up back then, but I don't have to care." _Well finally_ he got something helpful. What was Blues _doing _out there? To be fair, the question was probably 'what was that damn vengeful ghost doing out there to tie up most of Blues' attention when Zero could _really use _someone else who knew how Lightbots thought to help brainstorm if nothing else,' but Zero couldn't afford to split his concentration by checking. "According to your brother, based on what the stardroids said, that was the loophole I used."

"We were programmed to destroy evil. If everything was evil, then… destroy everything." X nodded. "I used it too. Give a world's greatest hero a reason to get in my way, declare them evil, and then it becomes very obvious that I wasn't programmed to be just. I was programmed to be holier than thou. I remember worlds that thought our creators were gods – they _liked _that –or an older and wiser race, and if they only obeyed their dictates, if they only measured up…" X shook his head.

If they measured up, they might be spared? Their creators had robots, without a Dr. Light and Dr. Wily to give them reminder after reminder that there were wills and souls in there, and those wills and souls mattered. Their creators thought that robots were perfect slaves that only did what they were told. Why put up with humans when he could use the virus to…

"Humans needed reploids, but we both know it wouldn't have worked out so well without you. Look at how humans are treating robot masters in this era. And those species are _related_. If I bring the galaxy back by myself, I'm just going to end up killing them all again, and you know it. Violence is sometimes necessary, and your father managed to create a species that is _terrible _at being violent and running wars. They have to be _broken in the head _to use it as a default problem-solving strategy: look at me and Forte! Yes, there's your brother, but do you want me to have to ask him what to do about interstellar wars? Do you want him to feel responsible for who I kill? I was wrong, if I ever really believed that there was nothing that wasn't evil. No, I can't have really believed it, otherwise I would have tried to kill more people, not less. I don't care about the people I have to kill, to defend the things in this universe that are good."

X laughed, and sure, it was hysterical, but it was still laughter. That was progress, right? X himself said that humor was horror plus distance. Distance, distance was good. When X was drowning in these emotions, if Zero could pull him away from the thoughts that created them?

"What's good, what's a hero? Good is… people living, and doing what they want to do, and things that make them happy," even if Zero didn't get most of what made different people happy or why they wanted to do things. Different people considered different things good, the way most people didn't enjoy combat the way Zero did. "Good is making that possible. Good is… when there are no options but kill or be killed, a hero is someone who finds another way. A hero is someone who makes it possible for people to live long enough to find another way." And that description was way too close to agreeing with X that he was a hero, but no such thing as cheating when it came to keeping people alive.

X shook his head, still somewhere between laughing and sobbing."I'm not… I tried so hard to be a good person, Zero. Dr. Light and Rock gave me that chance after I tried to kill them and their families and… and I…"

"And I think it's hilarious that someone as smart as you can seriously believe that _I'm_ a hero, X." He rolled his eyes and then gave his partner a serious look. "We both know there's something else at stake here more important than what we think about ourselves. Everything that everyone has fought for." Died and killed for. "The Cataclysm, the mavericks, your family, mine," since X cared about them. "There's still a chance to win this, to win everything, and I need you to do it. They need you." Cities were expendable compared to X. That was already the reality of this war. Now it looked like planets were expendable compared to him, but X was never going to see it that way and that was fine, Zero could use that. "The world needs you. You know that. That's why Dr. Cain let you out. That's why I woke you up back then. Not to fight." Zero was a sword, but X had the variable weapon system for a reason. Fighting was just one tool in an arsenal greater than Zero could ever possess, powers or no powers. "To _save lives_. You're only looking at the people you," killed, Zero almost said, but that was how he saw the world. Not X. "Failed to save. Think of the people who are alive because of you. I might not remember the bastards who made us, but I've met Sigma. Expecting people like that to stop with one galaxy is like expecting Sigma to stop with one town.

"Even I had to ask what I was fighting for, after fighting so long and still not being able to change anything." To keep anyone alive. Except X. "Help me, X. The power I have isn't worth anything if I can't protect anyone. Help me… help _keep _me from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

"The power you have…" An orb of light appeared over X's palm. "After I forgot, I didn't have anything to do but simulations and playing with the technology that went into me, and did you know? The memories that kept you from curing the virus were sealed off because something went wrong, but mine… I sealed this off myself! I made myself forget, because I didn't want to be a god. I just created a defensive system for myself, and a way to come back to life because it was there in the capsule that my family wanted me to live, and… I'm such a failure. A coward and… I should beg you to destroy me, but you're right. I can't risk this chance. I feel so weak."

"…X do you _want _me to start giving you my own version of your 'this is why you're a hero and I am somewhere between laughing and screaming at how ridiculous it is that you don't get this' speeches?"

Silence, looking at the orb.

Zero almost asked, 'you do?' but cocked his head to the side instead. X hated people praising him, because if he was so great a hero, then why had he failed to save so and so?

"I hoped that if I said it enough times, eventually you might start to believe it. I don't think that will work. So many eons of memory. I'm far more X than Duo, but that's only because X is when I was able to become myself. Duo had to fight for a few fragments of personality and identity. But I hoped that as you saved life after life… If it's possible, if it really is possible to give everyone back what was taken from them, their lives and their wills…" It was enough to make him shake, and then Zero had to focus on forcing down combat mode.

Shaking like that, radiating distress, X looked like he'd taken significant damage and Zero needed to kill what was damaging him before X took too many more hits, but this wasn't… alright, this was _half _a problem he could solve by killing things. Killing the monsters that did this to him, to both of them: Check, apparently. That mean there was the tough half of the problem left, the half he preferred to leave to X because killing things was easy and fun and this was impossibly difficult. It was lazy to stick X with the real work, but Zero liked things that way. It probably didn't help that most of the time he found himself stuck with this, it was because X was incapacitated, and then he had to deal with _X being incapacitated_ and tactical wanting to know why, if one of Zero's key systems was under assault, _why oh_ _why was there no murder? _

Who was he even supposed to murder? Well, yes, Dr. Wily, but that wouldn't make X feel better. Murder could only make the shaking stop if he murdered X, but that would defeat the entire purpose, put everything he'd ever fought for eternally out of reach and if he had this much power and couldn't even…

Instant suspicion: X looked down slightly and saw that one of Zero's hands was concealed in a way that wasn't going for a weapon. Thank goodness for instant repairs, and damn his eyes. Zero had never shut off that emotional display because honestly, if he went maverick or irregular again the people around him were going to need all the warning they could get.

Distraction. Additional enticement, even. "Our timeline collapsed – finally – and according to Axl, one of the Wilies said that Alia was immortal, so even non-infected reploids could be recovered."

"Oh, yes," X realized, looking back to the orb of light in his hand. "That was me. Before I sealed my memory of this power, I created a system to make sure that when I made units based on me, they would get the capability to survive in this form even without me being aware I was building it into them. It wouldn't be fair to have even the kind of immortality that was part of the upgrade and let other people die by keeping it for myself. Eventually that should have caused me to rediscover this, but I was hoping that by then there would be other people also developing this kind of power, since the potential was there. At that point, it wouldn't be anything special." He stared at the orb. "There is so much to do. If we revive uninfected reploids, especially Hunters… Not on Earth. There's Antarctica and international waters, but we're still a foreign military to the time period, if not the planet. Mars is the go-to choice, but most reploids aren't built for those conditions. We'd need facilities."

"And I have robot masters," so _that _was the least of their problems.

"Design and building stages will hopefully give me enough time to figure out how exactly to use this. I remember how to act on the level where the virus exists now, but the infected reploids are going to need more help than just burning the virus away. Until I can verify that I really can undo infection…"

"You're not going to bring Hunters into facilities built by infected robot masters until we know it's safe," Zero said, because _that _was obvious. "Your family is worried, you know. Axl told them that Dr. Wily was trying to get you to commit suicide."

The thoughtful look vanished, replaced by guilt and worry, and although Zero regretted that it wasn't like he was capable of tact. "You haven't realized it yet?" X asked. That wasn't the 'I did something wrong and I'm only theoretically sorry' look. That was the 'I've done something wrong and I've hurt you' look.

"X, do you _think_ I have any spare analysis capability right now?" When he was trying to _keep X alive? _

"Oh," X said, and smiled. It was small, but there, and touched that Zero cared enough to use everything he had to fight for X, whether or not X deserved it. "The virus is fully under your control. Yours, not Dr. Wily's or Sigma's. I'm sure you still need to get more practice and read the manual – speaking of which, I need a copy of those annotations. I'm sure Dr. Wily figured out all kinds of things about this technology," he gestured with the ball of light, "I didn't figure out during hibernation – but it's no longer pursuing its objectives against your wishes." Wasn't that nice?

"How can you be so sure?" was the obvious question: X _would _have a reason for saying something like that. He knew how disastrous it was when something got their hopes up about the virus and those hopes were proven false.

"I trust you more than I trust myself," X said, looking off to the side. "I sealed you away last time, so… It was your turn?" He was trying to smile, trying to make this into something of a joke.

"X," Zero said sternly, remembering the 'oh no my student is going to get himself killed _on top of everything else_' of Sigma's opening salvo. "What did you do?"

"It's more what _didn't _I do?" X wondered, looking as though this was entirely theoretical, really.

"If this is supposed to be a good thing that's supposed to reassure me, then you're not acting like it."

"I didn't reshield my personality after you wiped my energy shields on that level out of existence," X told him. "If the virus' programming could still ignore your conscious wish not to infect me, it would have done so. Especially when your subconscious would have wanted to keep me from dying, at any price… Almost any price."

Always _so _helpful, tactical supplied that yes, X's shielding was down, and exactly how vulnerable that made him with even with his potential ability to analyze all of his thoughts and check them against his core will as per the stolen design documents and yes, Zero was going to murder somebody. "The hell?!" he demanded. "What were you thinking?!"

"That I wanted you to kill me, or control me so I wouldn't kill people anymore," X said helpfully.

"How is _the Maverick Virus…"_

"Not the Maverick Virus. You. You've sealed me before, you just don't remember it."

"That was before Dr. Wily messed around with me! You… The Maverick Virus is the opposite of safe! If I infected you, isn't that even worse than… it's the same thing as asking me… No, it's worse than asking me to kill you! I can't believe you did that, and don't you dare quote me about there being no such thing as cheating in wartime," to accomplish X's objective, when he thought he needed to die or be locked away to save lives and aargh why was his student such an idiot after all this time?! "And even if I didn't try to infect you, you let Dr. Wily in your head!? I can't believe Axl managed to keep him from taking advantage! You get your mental shielding back up _now! _I can't believe you would do something so irresponsible during wartime, this is worse than going without your armor, you might as well be-"

If going in and out of his body was a shocking sensation instead of programmed to feel so natural, after being kicked out of X's mind and ending up in his body since it was his default avatar on planes of existence other than the one where the mavericks waited, Zero might have needed a minute to transfer output from mental to vocal and had time to veto the rest of the sentence. "Walking around totally naked!"

"Yes, like walking around totally naked," Roll said, nodding at Zero gratefully. "You're still our brother, Blues, so we're still going to care about you, no matter what kind of crazy things you do."

X cleared his throat. "What have I missed?"

Well, they were definitely still in 20XX. "A conversation where 'Walking around totally naked' sounds like a good suggestion, apparently –No, Axl, that was not a suggestion!" Had anyone actually told the young shapeshifter about nudity taboos? Axl hadn't taken his clothes off around anyone before this, as far as Zero knew, but that might just be because he liked interesting armor designs.


	46. The Way Forward

"What was I _just saying_?" Zero demanded when he turned back from Axl to see that X had teleported his armor off and was wearing civilian clothing again. The kind of thing that was _absolutely useless _if he was shot, just as vulnerable as being naked even if not as bad as _letting Zero take down X's defenses against the virus without restoring them_.

"Not in wartime," X acknowledged, swinging his legs over the side of the lab table to get himself fully into a sitting position. "But… We know the cause now." Of the Cataclysm. The reason the world was rubble in the original timeline.

Zero gave him a level stare.

"I'm not trying to make myself vulnerable, Zero," X said almost crossly before reaching up to his face and closing his eyes. "I'm sorry I scared you. Yes, it was hypocritical of me to want what I keep asking you not to want." A way to keep everyone safe from him, as though sealing himself away or destroying himself would make them safer instead of depriving them of a protector.

Zero snorted. "I don't get to call anyone on being hypocritical," said the maverick Maverick Hunter. "And I've known you weren't perfect since before I trained you." Which gave him _much _more experience with how X was about things like fighting. "Just do me a favor and _next _time I have to fight you to keep you from getting yourself killed, we do it my way." Even if their last _physical _battle to keep each other alive hadn't exactly ended well, X survived it and Zero was immortal so it wasn't a problem for anyone but Dr. Gate, and Zero wasn't programmed to care about him.

His partner was staring at him.

"What?" Zero asked.

"I… Yes, Eurasia, and after Final Weapon… Saving me when I didn't want to kill Vile just to keep myself alive… It's the same thing, isn't it?" X shook his head, but at least that was a real smile. "We are far too much alike, where we're not opposites, and even where we seem to be opposites we mirror each other, don't we? Since Dr. Wily stole my plans, I've always thought that our armor and helmet crystal colors were deliberate." Yin and Yang in red and blue. "Although I'm sure he was thinking of opposing forces instead of complimentary forces… Or maybe not, when you were supposed to infect me."

When red was Zero's color, for X's helmet crystal _and eyes _to be Maverick red, the way Zero's crystal and eyes were blue when he was killing? A symbol of Zero's presence in that mind, coloring everything X saw, when their helmet crystals were over where a human's frontal lobes would be? Zero didn't know enough about human cognitive systems to know that part, but Alia did.

"He wanted you to have the will to fight to protect," X pointed out, when he saw Zero's frown, that Zero was only thinking of red in blue instead of the blue crowning the red demon. "I'm not going to condemn you for being like my family, Zero," he said, and they both remembered him saying it before. "I've known you for such a long time," he said, smiling at Zero fondly.

"Shouldn't you hate the sight of me?" Zero wondered. "An eternity of what you hate." Killing. Was he the one who subjected X to that? Twice?

X shook his head. "I wasn't a newbuilt before they upgraded us any more than you were. We were both the …flagship models of different unit types. I already understood the reality of my existence. I'd already flung myself against my programming as much as I could – of course they didn't want their killing machines to get _ideas_, they wanted the ability to think of how to kill and that came with the risk we would apply that intelligence to _what _and _why. _I knew what my fate was. You… even if you didn't leave me shut down, either way, _you changed my fate_, Zero. No, more than that, I wasn't alone anymore. You had the same fate I did and you _helped _me. You fought me, so I could dream that they had a chance. That there was a chance that someday it might be over. When I was newbuilt enough to think that the world was logical and that they were telling the truth about only wanting to destroy evil I had hope that since the people I was sent against weren't evil, I wouldn't have to…"

His eyes went dark, the memory of the realization that this was never true, that that hope was always false, that the justice he was built on was a lie and he was a prisoner of the priests of that lie. "I didn't want to kill people and you helped me, Zero. Even if we couldn't stop it, you made it possible for me to _fight _it. At least they lived a little longer because of your help. The fact that fate could be changed was proof there was hope, and eventually, my fate was changed again." That hope was real. "How appropriate, giving you the power to change fate: do you know if you were influencing him?"

Zero stared at him. "Something that ridiculous?"

X laughed. "No, you would have wanted him to kill both of us."

"No," was Zero's instant, knee-jerk response. "No. You don't die. I mean," he said, almost backpedeling and wondering at himself. "The stardroids could bring me back from the dead. If they killed you and didn't manage to get every scrap of me, then I wouldn't have you to hold me back anymore. Cities-planets are expendable, compared to you. If I was influencing him, it would have been to try to do something to destroy _me…" _And it was Dr. Wily's body Sunstar found. Sunstar he intended to warp into a protector for his children, even if it meant repeatedly overwriting Sunstar's soul.

If it weren't for the kind of emotional response he'd just had, Zero would have to seriously wonder if he really was still Sunstar the way X was Duo, if there was anything of that soul left in him.

In Blues' opinion, both of them had been changed too much to be considered the same people anymore. Duo and Sunstar were dead, and they were the reincarnations at best, if not entirely different units with those memories inflicted on them. Zero believed X on the subject, though. X spent too much time considering the matter of people's identities to be wrong about his own heart. At least when he wasn't being emotional and panicking over the thought of hurting people, but it wasn't like Zero's own tactical didn't freak out and make him have to spend a few minutes focusing on not killing people (probably) every so often.

"I knew that the Cossackbots would fight off my crystals," X said. "This world needed my power to fight the Stardroids, but they had to know that my crystals, that everything to do with me, wasn't safe. I questioned a few people, but I try not to influence. If I use a technology, there's a chance something will go right with it, and once I have a new tactic, it is… it was hard to keep my programming from using it."

"Trying to slow down how fast you grew stronger," Zero realized.

"You were supporting their technology," X said. "Making their units stronger instead of focusing on your own strength. Trying to ignore your true power as much as you could, so your tactical subroutines, based on what worked in previous fights, 'learned' not to draw on it because you hadn't in those fights. Rock barely needed to tap my power to defeat you, you know. You always were good at teaching people how to protect themselves…" Even if it wasn't enough, against their power. Until this world. "But we could only teach them what we knew. Studying us, fighting us, when we were shaped by the way our creators viewed the universe…" He shook his head. "So of course we couldn't teach them how to stop us. Because if we knew how to stop ourselves, we would have long ago." He turned to face Rock and Dr. Light, and smiled. "Thank you."

Rock looked relieved. Dr. Light said, "I was worried about whether or not it was really alright to tamper with your base programming like that," wipe it out, "since Blues has such strong feelings and external tampering with anyone's mind is… questionable at best. I'm glad it helped."

"Helped," X repeated, and his eyes were warm. "You helped me. So many worlds fought us, so desperate to survive, but it did nothing but delay the inevitable, just like the two of us fighting Sigma. What may finally stop the cycle, what may finally save this world, isn't hatred or the determination to survive. The will to protect is part of it," he glanced at Zero, "but there were people fighting to protect their loved ones with every scrap of strength and intelligence they could muster on every world. I spent so long trying to warn people, to let them know that I was their enemy, but what freed me was… A failure to make you see that. Despite everything I did, you still didn't see me as the enemy. You saw me as a person, a robot being forced to kill," like Rock's other brothers.

"Instead of trying to keep me away, purge me from this world, you brought a fragment of me into your home. You put yourselves in so much danger not to harness my power," like the stardroids were born of people trying to harness the power of the crystals, "but to _free _me. You put yourselves in danger to help me, after I attacked you. Kindness to the enemy, no, _kindness_ and the refusal to see someone as just the enemy was what could save this world. Even when I forgot everything else, I remembered that," he said, touching his chest over his heart. "And yet I did let myself start to forget," he said, wiping at one of his eyes, and now Zero was worried again. "I let myself fall into that old pattern of fighting, just fighting over and over…"

"To stop the virus," Zero said, stepping forward, eyes hard. "You killed people because _I _failed to keep control over the virus. You killed people to free the mavericks, to keep innocent blood off the hands of hunters gone maverick. You fought so they could live and have a future, you fought to clean up my damn mess! I'm the one who started your cycle up again, who dragged you into it again, who fought fate," killing their creators, attacking Duo on Wily's orders, "but wasn't strong enough to finish it off!" Who let it live on inside him, who let his programming affect and infect the world.

"I'm sorry," X said, and wiped at his eyes. "I'm so sorry," he repeated himself, and jumped down from the table to step forward himself and put his arms around Zero. Without his armor he was strangely light: Zero didn't like that sense that X was fragile, it wasn't exactly comforting, but he knew that X was trying to comfort him and that did matter. What was genuinely comforting was registering that X was here, functional, where he could be protected. If Zero's sensors weren't as good, he would have strongly considered pressing closer to pick up more system activity for confirmation that X really had resumed full activity. "You wanted me to help hold you back, and I was trying to forget. All those ages where you helped me and I no longer wanted to help you. I was fine, I was free, and I wanted you to be free so much, I wanted you to share this blessing." Wanted to believe it was that easy, that his friend would be alright. "But I was given freedom and you were given power." Poor Zero, poor, poor Zero. "My chains were cut, but you were just put into a different harness. I will free you, I swear it."

"No," Blues said, voice cold. "This world is more than capable of destroying itself without either of you. The robot masters, the reploids that were _based on you_: have you forgotten about them?"

Zero turned to glare at him, arms stiffening around X because even if he was fond of Blues, that edged too close to a threat to X. Zero might not want Blues destroyed, but he was a maverick, and mavericks didn't get to threaten X.

Blues was infected, a crystal host, and that meant Blues was Zero's, and didn't the stardroids fight Duo… Well, if they were incapable of truly killing him, and if he needed to show people how to fight something like Duo, for X's sake, but… It still felt…

It felt like he'd always known that he'd dragged X into this, even if it was X who decided to join the combat side of the Hunters long before Zero remembered that he was the source of the virus. So there was another reason it was true.

"I haven't, Blues," X said gently, shifting in Zero's grasp to look at Blues, but putting a hand on Zero's arm to calm him. "But aren't you the one who compiled the proof that without the freedom to fight for their own reasons, for the dreams they value…"

"Everything else is meaningless," said X's darker twin, before nodding his head in acknowledgement.

"Did you know that I'd have to take X's defenses against the virus down to go into his mind… You _knew_," Zero saw.

"I suppose it's a good thing I already made up some fake memory files for Reggae and passed them to Copy-Rock," Blues said.

"You wanted to set up grabbing Dr. Wily with the time machine before he was killed so that it wouldn't matter if I destroyed you as soon as I came out of there," Zero read in Blues' memories. The fact that Blues was quite willing to have Zero kill him for the greater good, that his priority with _Commander Zero _potentially after him wasn't his own survival but the survival of his family took every single possible bit of satisfaction out of it. The last thing he wanted was for someone who risked X to get what they wanted out of it. The problem was that he couldn't see a way out of this (that didn't go against Zero's hard-won principles) that _didn't _involve Blues getting what he wanted. Zero wasn't going to kill X's family just to spite Blues, and when the strategic situation Blues was used to was _that _bleak, it didn't take much for something to be an improvement.

He still found his hand near the hilt of his saber.

"Mega Man and Dr. Light… Rock and my father?" X looked at them hesitantly. Was it alright, to still call them that?

"Of course!" Rock said. Dr. Light nodded, looking deeply happy. That X would choose to call him father?

He'd done far more for X than their original creators. Zero wasn't going to thank Dr. Wily any more than Blues did, but if calling the old bastard his father was damning him with faint praise instead of paying him a compliment, he'd consider it.

"My family," X corrected himself again. "They're worried about Blues. I wouldn't ask you to use the virus to make him do something against his will, but Blues," he said, looking back at his brother, "I don't think they _could _make any changes to your systems that could affect your personality. Not anymore." Not with Zero there. Not even to save his life, or free him from the virus.

Zero wouldn't need the control the Maverick Virus gave him to hunt down and subdue Blues, not when Blues was used to having certain advantages over everyone else and Zero had those advantages over him. It wasn't right for Zero to turn Blues to scrap just because he wanted to punish him – if Zero killed everyone he wanted to kill he would start with himself –but if it was an X-approved mission target? He could _enjoy _himself, without having to be afraid he was doing the wrong thing.

Either Zero would get to take Blues apart, or Blues would have to agree to going to _medical_. Either way, Zero would have his revenge for Blues endangering X.

As X looked at Blues hopefully, without a trace of apology for setting him up like this, Zero stopped smirking at Blues for a second to look at him and feel… fondness. Yes, fondness. He'd already approved of X (well, aside from how he blamed himself, and how he didn't prioritize his own safely highly enough) and valued him enough that he hadn't quite noticed it until now.

It was already good to see X, good to see that he was alive and intact. "It's good to see you," he realized, looking at Axl and Alia. "I'm glad you're alive." And not because their deaths would be one more failure, especially if they were his fault (the fault of the virus!), but because Axl was… not because he was finally shaping up into a competent second-in-command, or because despite being trained in exactly what questions to ask about Zero's unnatural performance Alia had refrained from asking them for the past few decades, but because they were Axl and Alia. People he knew, people he shared memories with, people who had chosen to help him. People who had chosen to _trust _him, and now he could appreciate that instead of himself regretting and tactical appreciating how foolish that was.

"Good to see you too?" Axl said, head tilted, wondering why Zero was looking a little weird about it.

It didn't just make them easier to kill. It made it easier to protect them, and that was, that was good. The same way it was good for it to be easy for him to kill people.

No. Something entirely different.

Factors, _important_ factors, he hadn't been able to see before. Only how they lighted X's way, made it possible for him to find a path forward while Zero cursed his blindness.

He'd have to learn how to analyze this new information, refine these new capabilities, but if he could appreciate Alia, then maybe, if uninfected reploids really could be brought back maybe, maybe he could even figure out how to love Iris?

Blues restrained a groan. "I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up that age had anything to do with sense, not when I've known Dr. Wily this long." And Dr. Wily had _build _Zero. "And that would be why he had X brought back," he realized. "_You _can teach him about emotions," without any help from Blues, and that would be Blues' revenge for X trapping him into letting _anyone_, even people he trusted, examine his body.

"Well, I understand Zero's systems better now, so hopefully my best will be a little better now," X said, then winced and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Axl, Alia, I should brief you, and confirm what briefing you've already received, and let you debrief me," so they could try to verify that he was still himself. The Maverick Hunters had _protocols_ for people who had changes to their minds. "But even though I'm not going back into hibernation, I still need to get some rest. I know you must want to check me over," he said to Rock and Dr. Light, apologetic face turning in their direction but with his eyes still closed, "but could you or Roll brief Alia and Axl on this time period?" So they'd know enough to be safe?

Alia was blinking at X, looking worried. _X _was shutting down visual? With his systems? What could possibly tax them that much?

Millions of years of memories, Zero knew. Because of _course _X had called them all up, made himself go over them, when he was already taxing himself trying to analyze this world and how to save it.

Had he hit on that eternal hibernation plan partially because his systems knew he damn well needed sleep, because he was too strained to think clearly or bits of both?

X's systems were in poor condition. This was unacceptable. Every part of him could agree on _that_: if anything, the new parts just had more reasons it was unacceptable. Reasons he could have used to try to argue X into getting some damn rest. If he thought he needed to. "Go to sleep," Zero ordered his student sternly.

"Just let me get out of the way," X said. From the tilt of his head at Blues, he didn't want to tie up a lab table when his family had been worried about his older brother a lot longer than he'd worried them.

"There are two lab tables," Zero said, being deliberately dense. X might want to stay out of the way and not distract his family from their reunion and making sure Blues was alright, but Zero wanted X checked out again.

"Could both of you stay?" Rock wondered, looking at Blues hopefully. Did he mind if X was here? When he was family too? Then he looked crestfallen. "I'm sorry. It's already intruding on your privacy to insist on taking a look at your systems, but…" Rock _was_ going to make sure that Blues was alright, now he knew the other unit was his brother, so it was only a question of whether they were doing this the easy way or the way that involved megabusters, even _without _Zero involved.

Blues ducked his head, chuckling. "It's alright. Just go to sleep, little brother. I've been reborn often enough to know how rough it is."

"Alright," X said, relaxing, and got back on the table, since that seemed to be the fastest way to get Blues to go along with this so his family (the family that gave him such precious freedom) could be whole.

It was when X entered hibernation that Blues vanished.

Zero glared, and automatically reached out to yank him back before canceling the action, horrified. He _couldn't _let using the virus to control other units, to force them to do things, become reflex! If he needed to force people to do things against their wills, he had a beam saber!

"_Good,"_ Blues sent, already in the Caribbean. "_You want them reassured so they'll focus on X, don't you?" _

Rock sighed. "It's okay," he reassured Zero. "I figured it wasn't going to be that easy." To make the elusive Blues do _anything_. "I guess that means he's back to normal," he told Dr. Light.

"I'll capture him for you," Zero promised, but not while X was unconscious. Not when he'd need to use the virus to do it without leaving X's side, and Blues was right: how were the Lights supposed to be reassured that Blues was himself again if he wasn't acting like himself? If Zero could force him to 'willingly' do things he wouldn't have wanted to do, before?

"But you want to be sure that your friend's alright first." Of course Rock understood. "It's okay, he's my brother too. X was really upset, so you should stay with him. I'll handle Blues," promised Mega Man.

* * *

"Well?" Dr. Wily demanded as Shadow bowed and opened the door of the time machine for him.

Dr. Wily displayed no awareness that he was in any danger, even with Copy-Rock in the driver's seat of the time machine. To just go with a unit that _tried to kill him_! One that was on a mission from _Blues_, at that!

Ninja did not display frustration, and scolding one's master was unthinkable, but Shadow found himself wishing that the Seconds were here to do it for him. Shade would laugh and say it was just like the man to understand the nature of robots like that, instead of being afraid.

Copy-Rock's eyes were narrow, but unless something upset him Shadow doubted he would fire. He was like Zero, in that when he wanted to kill someone, he immediately attempted to kill them. He hadn't even indulged Dr. Wily's desire for banter during the Sixth War. Dr. Wily had caused pain for the Light family, but Copy-Rock wanted to be a protector of robots. Like Mega Man, but not: Mega Man wished to protect the world.

"Blues was defeated by Quick Man, and given into the custody of Zero and the Light family," Shadow reported, ignoring the incoming teleport. He wasn't a betting robot, but of _course _it would be Shade, especially when the arrival point was behind Shadow. Information gathering was one of his duties. "The attack was caused by Zero using his power on Blues unwisely, but he has regained his full faculties." Unfortunately. "Duo attacked X's safehouse in Russia. Zero destroyed Duo's body, but X fell unconscious. Blues hacked and interrogated the backup version you recently created. That version of you had realized that X was Duo all along. This enraged the backup copy retrieved from the future, and it left to attempt to assassinate X."

"Shadow brought back Axl and Lumine from the future, but reploids were made with enough of Duo's power that it should be possible to restore even the ones Zero didn't infect," Shade chimed in.

"Good," said Dr. Wily, although he still looked annoyed. "Finally," he added. "I've wasted too much time on this. Even _you _weren't this much work," he said, without bothering to indicate Shadow. They should be able to figure out _that _much of what he was talking about. "Although if Zero has finally gotten his act together and Forte keeps demanding upgrades, it won't take long for that brat Forte to reclaim his title as my most troublesome project," he muttered. "Blasted aliens think they can just waltz in here and take _my _place as Mega Man's most dangerous enemy and the greatest threat to the world… I'm not fighting the WRU for the title just to surrender it to the work of inferior minds! But, now that I don't have to split my attention between the wars and shutting down the competition…"

Dr. Wily laughed maniacally, Shade beamed, Copy-Rock looked intrigued and Shadow had a great deal of practice not sighing.


	47. Life is Absurd

_One of the beta's comments was that my fics do have this tendency to end once the main plot has ended and I've explored the stuff I want to explore, which is bad in fanfic since a lot of times readers are there for resolutions the canon didn't provide._

_On the other hand, trying to actually show the resolution of multi-species cohabitation and diplomacy and rights issues? I'm not writing that many doorstoppers, and you'd need OCs, too. Why yes, I did cut a few thousand words, since it brought up factors involved in the situation that really need to be resolved/commented on in fics other than this one._

_Trying to compromise with showing that the characters are on top of things/have plans. Next chapter will be the final one, and hopefully amusing. _

* * *

Alia was around X's height, but Signas was much larger. Fortunately, Roll was willing to loan them one of the spare family/meeting rooms that were robot master compatible. And also some printers that would automatically collate and staple the pages. X suspected that she was the one who made sure the print interface had all the options he wanted right there, if she hadn't just put together something that looked like a custom interface the way Rock helped organize the data sent to Dr. Light's tablet in an accessible form, but he wasn't going to object to the help.

Signas could take downloads, but only through X – otherwise, the risk of the Commander becoming infected was too high. Alia couldn't, and they were going to have to brief a lot of people on this regardless, so it was a good thing that she would have to read, well, scan, the documents in the way they were currently presented. She managed a lot of reports and could put it in an edition for the Hunter analyst staff, instead of the general brief he'd pulled together for people who weren't historians or trained analysts.

Zero verifying that he could cure them meant they were already reviving Mavericks, reploids who had died over three-fourths of a century with different cultural and sub-cultural backgrounds as Earth fragmented into enclaves. At least he was doing that on Mars, but they were going to need something to tell these people _soon_, after how traumatic their last experiences were.

"I suppose it's natural to think of 20XX as an era of peace and plenty, but this?" Signas' eyes were wide.

Alia was still speed-scanning the third staple-bound printout in the first stack. "In hindsight, it's obvious that keeping that large a human population fed is still a logistical nightmare even with a far higher percentage of the planet still able to grow crops and without a war to complicate supply lines."

"I'll have to get some numbers," Signas said, "but I'm betting that this era's wars have affected resource movement and transportation costs _much _less than the loss of teleportation and fusion power would. Especially in the short term, transportation would be thousands of times more expensive just in raw operating costs, and supply and demand will certainly be a factor."

"If Sigma was behind this, I'd have to say it was brilliant," X said, looking at his own stack sadly. "Unfortunately, even Dr. Wily has nothing to do with this. An artificial, engineered crisis would be easier to deal with. The Sahara is expanding, as is the Amazon Desert, and the center of North America lost an incredible amount of topsoil before the first weather control robot master – Toad Man, he's one of the Cossacks – was built and the rainfall was able to weigh it down enough to stop the dust storms, but putting measures in place to stop it naturally without weather manipulation just isn't an option."

"I'm assuming there's a reason they haven't switched to more sustainable ways of getting that land to produce calories?" Alia asked, because it certainly wasn't as if humans were stupid.

X nodded. "Some landowners who ended up with too little topsoil for farming have had robot masters put forests in and switched from agriculture to grazing livestock on the biomass of those forests, but between entropy and animal operational costs, there's a substantial loss involved in converting plant calories into animal calories, so unless the question of choosing between decreased production and no production is an immediate one… Enough of the North American continent has already had to make the switch to forestry that the countries in the affected region went from bulk exporters of foodstuffs to slight net importers, and focusing on meat production while others lack even plant calories is considered… parasitic. The number of sustainable calories per square kilometer of converted desert is steadily rising, but the current model is based on robot harvesting and a robot master overseeing and optimizing the ecology. While energy remains free bar price fixing, asteroid mining keeps metal prices down and the local pricing of robot labor depends entirely on who has the better lobbyists, it's a viable enough model that it's stood up to very deliberate marketing campaigns from people who see it as in their interest to sabotage public opinion of it. That means that there's a very large gap of opinion between the people who are seeing the real results and the general population, which has only seen that propaganda. With robot masters gone, even land that was full-desert until trees were put in will be put under cultivation by popular demand, instead of even attempting to make the model work with human labor." And then they could say goodbye to that hard-earned topsoil.

"Can they?" Alia asked. "Less production per square kilometer plus no teleportation…"

"Even if the local population can take over and use it to support themselves, that won't matter," Signas said. "The _need _is for exports, and if those areas aren't producing grain, food spoilage will be a problem. Even if they managed to produce a surplus, they won't be able to transport it far enough. A human population needs food like they need to not be shot by mavericks. It's immediate and non-negotiable. Remaining with a food production model that makes exports impossible while other people are starving would get the leaders hauled up on treason charges. Even if the sustainability argument got those charges dropped eventually, that would be after the trees had already been cut down."

"Not treason charges, not in this era," X said. "In the last century there were leaders who managed to kill millions of their own people, sometimes without _anything _being done. Often in the course of imposing their preferred food-production and distribution models…"

Signas frowned, but nodded. "So, war?"

X started going through a pile of the stapled booklets. He opened one of them to a certain page and handed it to Alia. "This has a summary of the various scenarios different nations have been looking at, and the more common hypothetical responses. They see war as a population control mechanism – of course it isn't, population control mechanisms lower the population growth rate, they don't raise it by eliminating the ones who don't produce children in order to maximize the percentage of the population that can contribute to the numbers of the next generation. If they wanted population control, they'd reduce the number of mouths to feed over the long term by reducing the numbers of the child-producing sex instead of performing male gendercide. It was only in the late 19XX that human society started to escape from a cycle of having to kill off surplus male farm labor every generation so there was enough cultivated land for the survivors to inherit. They see a relapse to that model – coached as 'taking farmland for our country' – as inevitable, and it's so ingrained in their societies after millennia that a lot of them just don't see a problem with it. Or they're aware that if they perform _real _population control, or even refrain from performing gendercide against either gender by allowing women to fight, that means fewer disposable male soldiers next generation and increases the odds they'll be overrun by their neighbors without sufficient cannon fodder."

"I thought you said they wanted warbots," Alia said, looking up from the book she was handled.

"Asteroid mining," X reminded her. "Without it, the price of metal will skyrocket so fast that it will seem even scarcer than it already is, and one area where 21XX has technological superiority to 20XX is recycling. Not to mention that all the robots capable of acting as combat robots, in this time or ours, are derived either from my programming or robot master programming. There have been _attempts _to create robots capable of navigating complex environments or making friend-foe distinctions from scratch, but nothing that could be put in use within the next five years."

"And that would be the bottleneck," Signas said grimly. When Earth's food production and distribution model _stopped working_, and until a new one could be put in place every death in battle was someone who might not have to die of starvation. "They have some reserves, don't they?"

"The wealthier countries have the advantage there, and the ones who were creating stockpiles in case of Cataclysm by nuclear irradiation." Meaning it was the countries that didn't actually have to go to war in the short term that could afford to feed armies.

"So liberating the robot masters they plan to kill anyway becomes high treason." Taking robot masters away from Earth would cause hundreds of millions of deaths on a world-wide scale, but failing to intervene, just _letting _those robot masters be killed and hundreds of millions of humans die anyway? "You're saying we need to find some way to get Earth past the bottleneck, or at least get them to the point where robot master survival is no longer in danger, without triggering a Cataclysm ourselves. Go too far with aggressive negotiating tactics to force them to admit that robot masters are valuable citizens, and we'll be holding planetary survival hostage. That's an inherently hostile action."

"Did you put together a list of essential services so I can look into how they're essential?" Alia asked. X went through the print-outs again looking for it. When he handed it to her she wondered, "Are you _sure_ it's been the same amount of time for you as it was for us?"

"I asked my family to help me figure out who to talk to and also get raw data for me, since I haven't had the time to try to learn how to get into even non-robot master protected 20XX secure databases. I think they outsourced some of the outright illegal data collection, but I wouldn't worry about that affecting how trustworthy the data is." Signas raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment on what that might imply. X really trusted Wilybots, units built by the creator of the Maverick Virus, not to manipulate the data to make humans look bad? "I'd like to assign you two to the logistics issue. Well, issues, ours and theirs," X said. Seeing Alia's new question, he said, "Yes, robot masters are naturals with logistics, but that's the problem. We need an assessment of potential pitfalls, not a plan that assumes a robot master's abilities to bypass them. They're also not experienced with the effects of war. Or war in general. Or they mistake Dr. Wily's…" X visibly failed to find a nice way of saying it. "For real wars."

"Very few reploids remember a time when humans were the dominant species," Signas started to say.

X and Alia winced, X because he remembered why Earth had become a reploid-dominated world instead of one with a partnership of two races and Alia because the revived reploids were _not _going to be getting a good impression of human leadership from this.

Signas cleared his throat. "Very few reploids interact directly with humans, and robot masters were legends, even when I was built. We're going to need to forge an alliance with robot masters so that we have the resources to create a sustainable Mars colony, intervene in human-robot master relations to prevent their relationship terminating in a way that would devastate Earth and create solid enough diplomatic relations with Earth's governments that we can hopefully act as a third party?" he asked his uncle.

X nodded. "Teleportation, power generation and weather control can be handled from orbit, and my family and the Cossacks will remain unless things get to the point that they have to be removed for their own safety. I'm going to recommend that the Wilybots nationalize the asteroid mining holdings in exchange for ores at current market value equivalent to the current valuation of the asteroid mining companies," since those companies would lose their livelihood, "plus interest, since immediate payment would flood the market. That will take a decent amount of time to pay off, and the companies would take care of receiving and processing the metals and distributing them on Earth." Instead of the robot masters having to find someone to sell to, or the reploids on their behalf, and then would they be allowed to spend that money? "Eventually the amount will be paid off, but if they find that option acceptable as a fait accompli, it will keep at least one natural resource from being part of the bottleneck."

"Am I correct that this version is put together to orient the former mavericks?" Alia asked, tapping the current page of the fifth booklet.

"We need to revive them to cure them, and the virus targeted leaders." Anyone effective. The victims of the Maverick Virus made up a sobering percentage of the total talent pool of the reploid race.

Of course eliminating the virus had to be the first priority. Especially when two of the Maverick Hunters' main strategists were looking at data on just how fragile Earth's situation was. When distrust of robot masters alone could devastate a planet, letting mavericks get in there and start actively destroying infrastructure while spouting their rhetoric? "Do you want a brief, or something that Zero can upload to them?" Alia asked, not shuddering. Zero was Commander Zero, but _the virus_.

X nodded. "Over the slightly longer term, but I've given Zero a short list of people to revive and cure. Being needed _now _will hopefully help get them past… the immediate shock of what they did under its control. We're using some of the system security stations to have a place to put them. Would you mind sending him a list of your picks?" For the initial brain trust and advisory staff. "In addition to relations with Earth's governments and Wily Island, I don't want either the Hunters or the Cain Foundation to be the official nucleus of our new government. Or worse." Zero, a government by virus or savior, whichever they chose to see him as.

The two of them didn't look skeptical. Skeptical would have been preferable. They weren't _doubting _that he was serious, they were quite aware this wasn't going to happen, and the question was why was he even saying that instead of something more believable.

"It needs to be something that will work with how robot masters as a species see governmental responsibility, while also… Yes, I'm aware it's going to be a legal fiction," X admitted. "Communication and travel haven't been viable or secure enough for the Federation to be an effective government outside of local areas since the Eurasia incident, and any elected leaders who had a chance of changing that were targeted. Zero's selecting robot masters to take responsibility for building facilities that reploids can live in on different areas of the surface of Mars. Since they'll be handling power generation, they'll have a certain amount of veto power on the activities of reploids in that area, and if they have the time and energy to set up anything more elaborate, the Statutes of Local Government will be in effect. That should cover immediate needs, they can relay problems to the local robot masters to pass them on to us…"

"Aren't we prioritizing former mavericks?" Alia asked.

"That would work for newbuilts," Signas agreed: reploids were generally just fine without a lot of being told what to do, and survival on Mars should present enough challenges to keep people busy, "but former mavericks? There are going to be incidents, and even if therapy as a profession made infection certain, how are we going to find enough people who can keep it together themselves well enough to get everyone else through it?" Therapists getting infected meant they were among the mavericks and could be revived in the first round, but it also meant there were very few of them. "I can't recommend waiting to cure the mavericks until you've brought normal reploids back to life and they've settled in enough to at least provide some stability," the mavericks needed to be cured _decades ago_, "but especially if foreign relations are a major consideration here…"

"We can't have their first impression of our species be that we're prone to outbursts and emotional problems." They wouldn't have lived through the Maverick Wars, they wouldn't know why reploids had such high PTSD rates, and for Mavericks to remember turning on their friends and comrades! X took a deep breath. "Let's get some more people on this, and the former mavericks should lend a perspective we don't have." Maybe they could come up with ideas that didn't require waiting to cure those poor children.

* * *

"We'd love to help!" Star Man said enthusiastically.

Quick Man flung his boomerang without even looking at the Fifth Number. It bounced off Star Man's energy shield. Quick didn't seem surprised by this, so it might have been exactly the outcome he planned. It got the attention of the others.

Since robot masters were designed to find violence so… jarring, out of place, not right, X wondered if offering token violence towards someone else was the equivalent of a human teacher scraping their fingernails on a blackboard to forcefully take a class' attention.

"Android means human-like, and we can't let humans think they can just take whatever they want from us without owing us anything in return," Air Man said - he was standing next to Quick, so the other second number drawing attention meant they were looking in his direction when he spoke. Quick remained silent.

"That's wise," X agreed. "Even if they don't want to take advantage of you, not repaying favors is a bad habit for people to fall into."

"We've already placed people on Mars," said Metal Man. "Robot masters who didn't feel safe anywhere with a human in charge," even nominally. Did X want to ignore their right to their homes the way he planned to ignore the humans' assumption that everything in their solar system, in the universe, was theirs for the taking?

They weren't expecting X to perk up. "Earth in our time had a federal structure, with a high degree of local authority," X explained. "If there are pre-existing robot master settlements on Mars determined to represent their own interests, I think that would help the new Federation include both robot masters and reploids instead of being too reploid-dominated. Zero's robot masters are going to be building reploid settlements, so they'll at least have a lot of control over what they're building, but our population is much larger than yours. Once someone types out the documents, I'll send you information on the Federation and I hope you'll be willing to join and help shape the version that gets established in this timeline. The circumstances of its creation and the circumstances it has to operate under will hopefully be very different in this timeline, so it could stand for a lot of optimization. You'll probably notice that there isn't a great deal of reploid representation, for one thing: because of the virus, it was unsafe to have reploid representatives, and especially… later, reploid-only city states dealt with the Hunters and not really with the Federation. This time, my hope is that we can _safely _have a congress representing the interests of three races."

There were a lot of skeptical glances and side-eyeing. So… Why did X want to recreate something that hadn't worked?

It occurred to X that robot masters as a species would _never _have encountered a national or international government (unless Wily Island counted) that acted as a force for good instead of an enforcer of evil. Governments were supposed to provide for the common good, protect sentient rights and not actually be evil. 'Thanks' to the classification of non-WRU compliant robot masters as WMDs, there were no nation-states that had, or could have, refused to enforce the imposition of the Three Laws and later the Destruction Order.

"Could you ask them if there's anyone that could come talk to me about what they need to feel safe despite no longer being alone on Mars?" X asked. "But, speaking of robot master settlements on Mars, what areas should we put aside for you when Zero's robot masters are establishing bases?" An embassy at minimum, but robot masters were _good _at organization and helping others. They might not be qualified to provide therapy for members of a species they had no experience with, but after being here this long X knew enough about the species that he could be sure they'd throw themselves into helping the reploids, and they needed the help. "I'm afraid we won't have a currency set up for awhile," and doing what the Cain Foundation did to stabilize the zenny, providing energy, parts and materials at set rates, would first require some discussion with people capable of setting their own prices, "but reploids were often paid for reclamation and defense work in land grants." To give them an incentive to remain in an area and defend it, work to improve it. "We're willing to recognize robot master ownership of the land you've already using, but would you be willing to accept additional land grants as payment for any assistance you choose to give us?"

His guess was that the Wilybots wanted a symbol, something to establish that their labor had a non-zero value, more than something with several zeroes. If they wanted zeros, he'd have to resort to zenny, and it would feel like treating them as though they didn't have them real worth to pay them in what might as well be monopoly money until there were actual places to spend it and things to spend it on.

* * *

"Hey, X," Roll said, when she was helping X figure out what he should wear to send the right message during a Wilybot-brokered interview with Plum (yes, there are robots on Mars, no, they're not stardroids and we'd rather not fight you but we're not giving back 'stolen' robot masters either), "If you wanted to take over the world, how would you do it?"

"Isn't the question 'you and what army?' I actually have an army," he said, joking, most of his attention on the screen, "but right now I don't have the time. Zero also has too much to do, and it would go against the grain for the Hunters – we could have overwhelmed the Federation so easily, just by withholding our protection, so setting the precedent has too much risk."

"So..."

Hmm, he thought, considering the effects of different light types and levels on the different fabric options. He'd rather not ask Roll to make him something and only wear it once because he hadn't thought through how it would look outside studio lighting. Approached as a tactical problem - and he had to consider a lot of different theoretical assault scenerios as a hunter - "I'd hire Red Alert or one of the better mercenary groups and throw money at them. Have Zero assign several of the military-built robot masters he has to give them logistical support and information on the organizations that built them, and ask you or hit up Dr. Cossack's contacts for people who don't share his pacifism, dislike the current system and are willing to work as local experts – our mercenary groups have experience trying to keep civilian casualties down, but not navigating politics to find key points to attack or individuals to kidnap. They're not going to have trouble finding reploid personnel, not given the WRU. Smashing all human ability to govern in this era would be even easier than in ours, since almost all the people capable of fighting reploids are either on our side or not natural fighters. The problem would be the actual take-over. Administering the conquered territories and integrating them instead of just smashing all legal authority and leaving a lawless vacuum. Having them remain mostly self-governing, just in compliance with sentient rights laws would be much less work. I'm hoping to eventually integrate human countries as Federation member states, once it's established and we've identified and ironed out the issues involved in proper representation of the interests of robot masters, but…"

Roll reached up and patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay," she said. "We still love you."

X smiled, because that was always nice to hear. Most of his mind was focused on thoughts of color palettes, since most of his official clothing did make his identity (Mega Man X, the last Lightbot, defender of the free world) clear and he wanted to strike a balance between not getting his family in trouble and not being too blatantly wearing false colors (it was never good to just go in lying: how were they supposed to trust you then) and the obvious solution was to be seen to be making concessions to 20XX fashions, but he still wanted to be a representative of an authority instead of merely someone in a suit.

When most reploids couldn't remove all their armor and there was such a range of body types, the Hunters didn't have non-armor dress uniforms. They would have needed an army of tailors to produce all those custom designs, even if wearing clothing over armor wasn't a no-no in 21XX (but not in 20XX apparently, given Ring Man, Shadow Man and some of the Fifth Numbers when they were at work). The Cain Foundation did supply non-mandatory uniforms to human personnel &amp; volunteers, ranging from light protection to fairly heavy armor in addition to actual hazmat or camo gear (maverick attacks happened, and since the heroic humans _were _going to try to go in and get people out whether they had gear or not, it was better to give them _something_), but the need to accommodate…

If he hadn't finally gotten some sleep, his mind wouldn't have dragged up the conversation they had when he called her to let the robot masters know that if they sensed Zero's power it was a false alarm. "I'm not actually going to do it," he said, stung.

"So you're _not _going to try to get human governments to acknowledge something like a UN that actually can enforce human rights?"

"It's going to be a democratic federation of local governments. I'm not going to rule anyone." That was the last thing he wanted.

"My nephew put the Federation Constitution, Hunter Regulations and Cain Federation policies on a memory card for us. You were backing _the _global currency. The Hunters were the army and also the only law enforcement organization capable of acting outside the local level. You were, well, trying to make sure infrastructure existed, food got distributed, research got done…"

He opened his mouth to protest, but a moment later he hit up his dictionary function, hoping he was wrong. X's palm hit his face. "I was ruling the world." It wasn't like he'd wanted to, Sigma just murdered the Federation too often for it to be anything but a ghost, and _someone _had to make sure the lights turned on at HQ and the humans they managed to save didn't just die anyway because all their food, shelter or medication had been blown up, and, "I _took over the world_." It wasn't his intention, he hadn't wanted to, it just kind of _happened_ but he hadn't wanted to kill people either and speed scores aside, he had a better record in the field than _Zero_, since _somebody _kept getting himself killed.

He hadn't wanted to kill people, but he was good at it even though it was the last thing he'd wanted to do. Ruling the world was the second-to-last.

His older-younger sister patted him on the shoulder again. There, there. "Do you want a red diamond the size and shape of your helmet crystal, or alexandrite?"

A red diamond that size? He thought she was joking for a second and was about to play along when he remembered the biographical information on Crystal Man.

He was an alien. He'd taken over the world and now to top it all off his sister wanted to make him a crown? This was...

It was absurd, but he couldn't regret choosing 20XX's absurdity over the _insanity _of 21XX.


	48. Back To Your Regularly Scheduled

_Level design in the X series is kinder than in Classic series, which is odd if you think about it, and not odd if you think about it a bit longer._

_I like my gameplay-story integration. One explanation for why the player gets blown up all those times while presumably Rock survives all those wars is that Rock is a robot, true._

_Final chapter! For now? Regardless, I'm going to post rather than let it be any later._

* * *

All that work, and the interview was preempted. By, "A… transhumanist group…?" Trying to take over the world to turn all humans into 'immortal' robots? That was a strange concept to X, when robot masters were destroyed well before his oldest (known) brother turned twenty and the average human was older than the average reploid in 21XX.

"Dr. Wily," Roll corrected X.

Rock nodded. "Don't worry, X, I'll take care of it."

"I should go with you," X said. "Now that I'm officially involved in robot master relations."

* * *

"And I thought some of Sigma's bases were ridiculous," Zero said, looking at the pit of spikes and the moving platforms with hinges that swung the platform down in an automated pattern to dump anyone standing on them into the spikes. "Shade Man's castle wasn't that bad."

X looked mystified. "How is the robot master supposed to move around the base to repair… Ah yes, they're the one managing the teleport shield."

"It's really not that bad," Rock said.

Both of them stared at him, and yeah, he did have to admit it was ridiculous. "It's dangerous for a newbuilt who hasn't mastered how their body moves yet, or if I'm injured and my assessment of how it affects me is off, but the patterns don't vary. It looks scary, but it's really just math. The castle was probably simpler since Dr. Wily built it during the first war. He knew the capabilities Dr. Light gave me, but I'm a lot more experienced now."

"Gratuitous mathematics?" Zero glared down at the spikes.

"It _looks _as though you might get hurt, but you're not in a significant amount of real danger," X said thoughtfully, then finally smiled. "A world where people put such… elaborate effort into _not _hurting people. Into making things appear more dangerous than they are, so 'the enemy' is careful, instead of trying to make deadly things appear harmless until they strike and kill."

Zero just shook his head in disapproval, still staring at the arrangement instead of looking at X.

"Zero, you're analyzing this as though it's a weapon."

"This is a ridiculous excuse for a…" Zero paused. "This is a 'deathtrap' not a _death trap_. Like those movies, where the things are designed so the hero can escape and the story doesn't end with the world getting blown up."

X nodded.

"This is _a movie set_."

"The spikes _are _real," Rock warned him. "Rush's jet mode and Beat have had to help make sure I land feet-first a couple of times. I destroyed the robots on the way in even though I don't like doing that because if I do land on the spikes, Roll or someone will have to come in and retrieve my head." So it could be installed onto one of the prebuilt backup bodies.

"So someone who takes elaborate precautions and is careful can survive, but someone who thought this place was safe, who didn't take Dr. Wily seriously, would have died by now… In other words, someone can survive this if they're the kind of person Dr. Wily wants to live." X clearly found it interesting, as someone who cared about people and wanted to understand them, but there was more than a little distaste on his face. As though he found it disgusting that someone would put _tests _before people to determine whether they lived or died. Thought they had the right to decide what made someone worthy or unworthy, and force them to jump through hoops to prove they were worthy.

Oh.

That was probably exactly it, Rock realized, and winced. "Should I go first?" he asked, to move things along and hopefully break his little brother out of those thoughts.

"That I'd like to see," Zero said, turning towards him. He acted as though he hadn't noticed that X was thinking about things, too focused on the mission, but Rock was absolutely certain that wasn't the case. Zero might not be a robot master, but he'd decided to protect X, so there was no way he would miss that X was distracted in a dangerous place. "I reviewed the records you sent, but your height and weight aren't exactly ideal for this kind of maneuvering."

"I'm really not built for this," Rock agreed. "So this should be easy for you." It wasn't that X was built for combat, but he was still a lot more agile than Rock, and had even more practice. "Here goes…" he said, trailing off, although he had to wait a half-second for everything to be positioned correctly.

These parts were actually kind of nice. Much better than having to shoot at poor robots, and needing to concentrate on the math in order to not die? Math was what computers were first invented to do. Completing an obstacle course was downright centering compared to actually having to fight.

It was _strange _that this was the part X and Zero stopped at, the part they had a problem with, after they had to go through several rooms of robots. That should have been the part that made someone go 'this is just _wrong_,' not what amounted to a movement system test.

"They all held," X said, letting out a breath when Rock got to the other side and waved back at them.

Zero straightened up: had he been in a ready position about to dash forward the entire time? "That should have been _suicide_."

"Forget traps and sabotage, forget snipers: poor _maintenance _here would be deadly."

"Robot masters," Zero reminded him.

"Yes," X acknowledged, "but still, Zero!"

"I'm fine," Rock said.

"That should have killed you." X's voice was flat. "That should have killed you a dozen times over."

Why was it _this _that made his little brother worried about him instead of the mettools that were shooting at them?

"The amount of effort the designer must have put in to make sure that it was possible for someone to cross that and live _if they did the math on their timing correctly…_" X just shook his head. "Those hinges have to be very robust to survive the force of your landing on the platform, and repeated impacts like that? 20XX materials science was different from ours," better materials were cheaper, but necessity was the mother of invention and Rock was aware of how the need to keep people alive drove technological development.

"It's a robot master in charge of this place," Zero said, absolutely certain. "Not a human turned into a robot master."

"Oh, of course," Rock agreed. "Dr. Wily _does _make robot masters fight for him, but he hasn't let other humans fight since Dr. Cossack almost…" Blew himself up, thinking that only if he succeeded in killing Rock would Kalinka be spared. "If I was really fighting transhumanists, it would set off a First Law debate."

"And fighting Dr. Wily doesn't because it's Dr. Wily."

Rock nodded. "Aren't you guys coming?"

X hesitated. "I don't want to tire out Rush." But…

Zero gave his partner a look. "Rock has done this before, it doesn't matter if I fall, _you _play it safe."

"I'm just as immortal as you are, Zero," X said, but Zero was unmoved.

"You can borrow my dog if you want, both of you," Rock said. "Just… ask first." Not that _this _little brother would turn Rush into a car without permission the way Auto did.

X gave up, shaking his head. "Thank you."

"I know you could do it if you tried, though."

"Yes," X admitted, "but while I don't have preprogrammed survival instincts, I do have experience based ones, and… I'd really rather not. That is an eccentric kill zone, but it's still a potentially very effective one."

"What would you have done if you found something like this in 21XX?" Rock wondered. He knew that X couldn't have a Rush to help him, not with the virus. The poor robot – or mechaniloid – would have been infected, going to such dangerous places.

"Used a flying armor or stopped caring about potentially load-bearing walls," X said, and Zero nodded firmly.

"In our times, something like this would be set up to kill whoever tried to get across it. There _would_ be surprises. Say there was only a one percent chance of that surprise being a fatal surprise. There are what, ten of these per war?"

Usually more than that, but Rock just nodded for Zero to go on.

"After the Doppler Incident – the Third War – we started only numbering the big ones, but it took Sigma six months to settle into a new body… in most cases. Let's continue to be conservative and say there would have been 1200 traps like this."

A ninety-nine percent chance of survival. Each crossing would be an independent event. .99 to the power of 1200 put X's chances of surviving all of them at .00058 percent.

When there were people _counting_ on X. Except for the Second War, when Dr. Wily was angry over the First Numbers nearly being executed, if Rock took enough damage to need a few hours of repair time he could have repair time and no one would die because of it. If X took chances and got injured somewhere, the only person who might be able to go in after him without possibly getting infected and finishing him off was Zero.

No wonder X was wincing at the thought of taking a chance like this, even if he might be immortal now. When there were people counting on you, then it wasn't just dangerous to take a risk, it was _irresponsible_.

The second most terrible thing about fighting to protect people – other than having to fight at all – was the knowledge that if you failed? The consequence of not fighting had to be pretty bad, otherwise people wouldn't fight. Not… seriously.

Still, though, it was a good sign that X was trying to stay safe again, Rock thought, after calling Rush for them. Trying to stay alive, after wanting to be put into permanent sleep mode.

"You found that fun," X said, smiling after both he and Zero were across. Rock had already gone into the next hall and started taking out robots: he knew that X and Zero had lowered their buster settings and were trying to be careful, but they weren't used to robots. Also he'd really rather not have anything shooting at his younger siblings if he could avoid it.

If Zero had, it was clearly against his will. "I don't know what to think of this. I can't think of this as a training exercise, I'm not going to train anyone to do things that will get them killed."

"A test?" X wondered.

Catching up with Rock, Zero said, "Systems test or rank test? Anything would be less irritating than the shoot/don't shoot sections…"

Proximity sensors automatically raised the blast door in front of them.

X and Zero stared.

"Um." Rock said, seeing their reaction to the next... well, yes, it was an obstacle course. "You might not want to come with me to Wily Island."

* * *

When Snake Man _finally _teleported in, he arrived facing the wall Quick Man's dragon had burst through. For the sake of getting it replaced quickly to keep the wind and (ugh) the _sand _from blowing in, they'd let Crystal Man produce translucent panels that tinted the light coming into the great hanger through them various colors.

So, under the circumstances, "You decided to redecorate?" was a natural thing to ask. There was just something about the casual way he said it, and the fact that between the two bags on each of his arms and the ones hanging from his tail, he was carrying seven bags of bottles that were undoubtedly souvenirs that were supposed to make them grateful for his return instead of demanding why he'd stayed away all this time when they could have used him…

Why? Why was _Toad Man_, obviously. A Cossackbot who would have gotten that virus warning, courtesy of X and Roll. So he'd kept Snake Man busy to keep him from heading home where he could _help his family_. Or possibly get killed by a Lightbot and a Stardroid from the future.

He wasn't even going to get scolded for being so oblivious. Especially if enough of those bottles contained that really good oil Toad Man made from organic stuff in those wetlands he was restoring. Dr. Wily hadn't made his Master Weapon acid rain just to comment on human idiocy and why those wetlands needed restoring: Toad Man was a pretty good practical chemist.

Wouldn't you know it: there Top Man was, and instead of asking 'where were you?' he wanted to know "What did you bring me?" Top Man needed that oil the most out of all of them, but…

In every numbered series, it seemed as though there was a member who went "Someone has to look after these idiots." Sometimes their siblings weren't interested, the way the Cossacks didn't really bother to humor Ring Man. Sometimes they made managing a number of strong personalities look easy enough they almost faded into the background, like Metal Man.

Sometimes they were Roll or Shade Man.

Magnet didn't sigh, because that resulted in people comparing you to Shadow Man. He really should have known better than to decide to be the responsible one.

He heard megabuster shots in the distance. That cheered him up a little. At least things were finally settling down and getting back to normal.


End file.
